01659533

Component

Childhood obesity has become a serious public health challenge during the past few decades, calling for policies to incorporate physical activity into students’ routines. This study is an effort to contribute to the current literature of school travels in two avenues. First, the authors adopt the multiple discrete continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model to examine the comprehensive mode choice pattern of students, and gain a general understanding of how flexible a student is in combining his/her most preferred mode with other choices. Second, various sources of inter-personal heterogeneity are captured by using a latent-classification framework as well as differentiating the home-to-school from school-to-home trip chains. Four different modes (active, auto, transit, or school bus) and three accompaniment styles (alone, with one accompany, or with more than one accompanies) are considered, to account for interrelationships between the two decisions. The authors incorporate different explanatory variables into the models, from socio-demographic characteristics of students and their household to land-use, safety, and seasonal/weather conditions. The effects of explanatory variables (e.g., effect of age) and their signs were found to vary significantly across different classes. Furthermore, modal satiation effects were found to notably vary across classes, suggesting the importance of accounting for the existing heterogeneity in mode choice behavior of students.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB00 Section - Travel Analysis Methods.

18-01306

English

6p

2018

Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

References

Automobiles; Mode choice; Nonmotorized transportation; Public transit; School buses; School trips; Students; Travel behavior

Multiple discrete continuous extreme value model

Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2018 Paper #18-01306

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 8 2018 10:20AM