01340278

Component

The study of respondent heterogeneity has been one of the main areas of research in the field of choice modelling in recent years. The emphasis has been on variations across respondents in the parameters used in the utility function while maintaining the assumption that the actual utility specification is generic across respondents. Recent work by David Hensher and colleagues has moved on from this by allowing for differences in the utility specification across respondents in terms of inclusion or otherwise of specific attributes, in the context of work looking at heterogeneous information processing strategies. But the assumption that all respondents make use of the same choice paradigm remains, despite evidence in the literature that different paradigms work differently well on given datasets. In this paper, the authors go one step further by presenting a framework in which the model at the sample population level is a mixture of different individual models. The authors present applications on three different datasets, showing mixtures between "standard" random utility maximisation models and lexicography based models, models with multiple reference points, elimination by aspects models and random regret minimisation models. In each of the case studies, the behavioural mixing model obtains significant gains in fit over the base structure and further insights into behavioural patterns. There is also evidence that what is retrieved as taste heterogeneity in standard models may in fact be heterogeneity in decision rules.

The DVD lists the title of this paper as: Mixing of Behavioral Processes: Modeling Framework and Four Case Studies.

01329018

11-2054

English

18p

2011

Transportation Research Board 90th Annual Meeting

DVD

References; Tables (4)

Behavior; Case studies; Choice models; Decision making; Heterogeneity; Transportation planning; Travel behavior; Travel patterns; Utility theory

Framework (Planning); Random utility models; Respondents (Surveys)

Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2011 Paper #11-2054

TRIS, TRB

Feb 17 2011 6:02PM