An analysis of drivers route choice behaviour using GPS data and optimal alternatives

This work aims to study drivers' route choices using a dataset of low frequency GPS coordinates to identify travels' trajectories. The sample consists of 89 drivers who performed 42 thousand paths in the province of Reggio Emilia, in Italy, during the seventeen considered months. Four attributes that may be important for the driver are identified and four optimal alternative paths are created based on the selected objectives to evaluate route choice behaviour. The comparison between the characteristics of the paths allows to conclude that drivers select routes that are overall longer than their optimal alternatives but that allow for higher speeds. Furthermore the statistical analysis of drivers' route choices in macroareas evidences that drivers have different behaviours depending on the geography of the territory. Specifically, there is higher heterogeneity of route choices in the plain areas compared to the mountains. In the second part of this work, clusters of repetitive travels are identified and a Geographical Route Directness Index is proposed to identify the areas of the province where the deviation from the shortest alternative path is higher. The analysis shows that, among groups of repetitive travels, the value of the index is higher along the ring road of the city of Reggio Emilia and there is a strong negative correlation between the frequency the driver selects the longer alternative that allow for higher speed, and the number of additional kilometres the same driver has to travel.     

A GPS data-based analysis of built environment influences on bicyclist route preferences

This study examines the effects of built environment features, including factors of land use and road network, on bicyclists' route preferences using the data from the city of Seattle. The bicycle routes are identified using a GPS dataset collected from a smartphone application named “CycleTracks.” The route choice set is generated using the labeling route approach, and the cost functions of route alternatives are based on principal component analyses. Then, two mixed logit models, focusing on random parameters and alternative-specific coefficients, respectively, are estimated to examine bicyclists' route choice. The major findings of this study are as follows: (1) the bicycle route choice involves the joint consideration of convenience, safety, and leisure; (2) most bicyclists prefer to cycle on shorter, flat, and well-planned bicycle facilities with slow road traffic; (3) some bicyclists prefer routes surrounded by mixed land use; (4) some bicyclists favor routes which are planted with street trees or installed with street lights; and (5) some bicyclists prefer routes along with city features. This analysis provides valuable insights into how well-planned land use and road network can facilitate efficient, safe, and enjoyable bicycling.     

Shortest path distance vs. least directional change: Empirical testing of space syntax and geographic theories concerning pedestrian route choice behaviour

Existing knowledge on the impact of built environment (BE) on route choice behaviour is doubtful due to an unresolved tension between two schools of thought. One represented BE geographically and found that most people tend to choose the shortest route. The other represented BE topologically and showed that least directional change is a key determinant of route choice. How do pedestrians make a trade-off between these two factors in route choice? This question is answered using walking route data of 178 pedestrians in Brisbane, Australia. Their reported routes were examined against the corresponding shortest path and least directional change routes using the percent overlap method. The effects of 25 additional BE factors were also estimated in a conditional logit model. The results reveal that: (a) Together distance and direction are likely to explain 53% of route choice decisions; (b) Individually, distance and direction are likely to explain 34% and 46% of route choice decisions respectively; (c) 28% of the chosen routes satisfied both distance and direction criteria. These findings confirm the claims of both schools, but also point that the least directional change route is a preferred option, and that pedestrians tend to minimise both criteria if they can.     

Using spatial network analysis to model pedal cycle flows,risk and mode choice

Spatial network analysis (SpNA) provides a promising alternative to traditional transport models for the modelling of active travel, because walking and cycling behaviour is influenced by features smaller than the scale of zones in a traditional model. There is currently a need for link-level, city wide modelling of cycling, both to ensure the needs of existing cyclists are catered for in planning, and to model the effects of changing infrastructure in shaping cyclist behaviour. Existing SpNA models treat cyclists and car drivers as if they make navigational decisions in a similar way, which in reality is not the case.This paper presents an SpNA model using hybrid betweenness, which fits cyclist flows in Cardiff, Wales using distance, angular distance, motor vehicle traffic and slope as predictors of route choice. SpNA betweenness is also shown to implicitly capture the effect of urban density on mode choice. As it handles route finding decisions of drivers and cyclists separately, the model presented is also applicable to road safety models examining the interaction between the two classes of road user. The model has low cost of data collection and is reproducible using publicly available network analysis software and open mapping data. Further avenues for modelling the effect of infrastructure on cycling are discussed.     

A GIS-based toolkit for route choice analysis

This paper develops and applies the route choice analysis (RCA) toolkit. This GIS-based toolkit generates a suite of over 40 variables describing route characteristics such as distance, travel time, speed statistics, number of intersections, number of turns, number of stop signs/stop lights, and a measure of route circuity, to name a few. The input to the toolkit is one or more routes, which can be obtained from global positioning system (GPS) data or some other means (e.g., shortest path). While the toolkit is designed to support route choice modeling by generating variables that have been tested in previous modeling efforts, we demonstrate its utility by testing the hypothesis that workers choose routes to minimize either travel time or distance between home and work. A GPS-enhanced data set of 237 observed routes for home-to-work trips collected for auto drivers in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada is used in our analysis. We find that the null hypothesis is refuted - that is, a comparison of observed routes to their shortest-path alternatives based on time and distance via inferential statistics indicates that observed routes are significantly longer compared to their alternatives. This finding suggests that workers may choose routes based on other route attributes. The attributes generated by the RCA toolkit for observed, shortest time, and shortest distance routes are compared and significant differences are noted.     

Road environments and bicyclist route choice: The cases of Davis and San Francisco,CA

Examining bicyclists' route choices provides valuable insights into the importance of road environments for bicycling. In this study, we examine the role of road factors, individual factors, and preference heterogeneity on route choice using two diverse and extreme cases in the U.S. The first case is bicycling to the University of California, Davis campus by students, faculty, and staff. This case represents the most bike friendly environment in the U.S. which affords a diverse bicycling population. The second case is bicycling to many destinations for many purposes in San Francisco, CA. It is more representative of a large U.S. city, but also has a relatively large bicycling mode share. It serves as an important case for examining the new innovative type of bicycling infrastructure that has been installed in North American cities over the past decade. Results suggest substantial within-city between-person heterogeneity in preference for road attributes and bicycling facilities as well as differences between contexts. Davisites show strong preferences for bike lanes and off-street paths and consistently choose routes of similar length to shortest routes indicating the need for suitable routes with minimal detours to support a large bicycling mode share. San Franciscans show strong preferences for conventional bike lanes on minor arterials, even stronger preferences for separated and protected bicycling facilities, and are willing to detour considerable distances to ride on them. Given large between-person differences within cities, we suggest usual valuations of bicycling facilities from elasticities and marginal rates of substitutions at the mean may need rethinking when applied to bike infrastructure planning.     

Route choice behavior in a radial structured urban network: Do people choose the orbital or the route through the city center?

We use a license plate survey to study route choice through the city center of a medium-sized Dutch city, in which car drivers can basically choose between the orbital and center ring. For a sample of 1397 trips, we fitted a multinomial logit regression model. According to this model, route choice is relatively little influenced by actual travel time. This corresponds with the fact that many drivers did not choose the shortest time route. Travel distance in combination with one “route type velocity” for all orbital routes, and one route type velocity for all center routes is the most decisive factor. The route type velocity indicates how fast and attractive routes of that type are (being perceived). The results support the hypothesis that orbital routes are more attractive as these routes avoid the busy city center. This effect is however partly offset by the fact that drivers also prefer routes in the direction of their destination. These direct routes are mainly center routes. The results show the importance of considering complete routes in relation to their location and not only as a set of links and nodes when modeling route choice.     

Route choice and residential environment: introducing liveability requirements in navigation systems in Flanders

Vehicle route planning and navigation systems aim to provide the most beneficial routes to their users while disregarding the impact on the liveability of the surrounding residential areas. Therefore, future integration of route choice behaviour by route planners and measures to improve liveability and safety standards should be pursued. The Spatial Plan for Flanders, which is the overarching spatial policy plan in the northern part of Belgium, determines a system of road categories aimed at optimising the liveability of sensitive areas, such as residential neighbourhoods or school precincts, without jeopardizing accessibility. This paper examines to what extent routes proposed by commercial route planners differ from more socially desirable routes that are guided by the policy principles of road categorisation in Flanders as proposed by the plan. Results show that commercial route-planners’ routes choose more often roads of the lowest category than socially acceptable. However, for some of the assessed connections, the socially desired alternative is a feasible route as well, which is not excessively increasing time consumption or distance travelled. It is concluded that the implementation of the prevailing road categorisation system in Flanders in routing algorithms has the potential to promote more sustainable route choices, while infrastructural measures that discourage cut-through traffic may help materialising the categorisation system.     

Policy insights from the urban road pricing case studies

This article reviews and compares the results of four modelling case studies of urban road pricing implementation that were carried out for the MC-ICAM project. The studies all concern large cities in Western Europe (Paris, Brussels, Oslo and Helsinki) and they all examine phased implementation paths in which constraints on the set of policy instruments are progressively relaxed. However, the studies used different models that vary with respect to the endogenous dimensions of traveller behaviour, the level of detail in which road and public transit networks are represented, and assumptions about what policy instruments are available and what constraints apply.     

Analysis of the impact of street-scale built environment design near metro stations on pedestrian and cyclist road segment choice: A stated choice experiment

The mismatch between the design of the micro-scale built environment around metro stations and pedestrian/cyclist preferences causes inconvenience and dissatisfaction. How to design streets near metro stations to provide a walking/biking friendly built environment is still a key question in promoting the use of metro systems. To identify which general attributes of the street-scale built environment are relevant for pedestrians/cyclists and increase walkability/cycle-ability, this paper reports the results of a stated choice experiment in which eight built environment attributes were systematically varied: street segment length, average number of building floors on both sides of the street, retail shops in frontage of streets, street crossing facilities for pedestrians/cyclists, width of sidewalks/bicycle paths, greenery, density of street lamps and crowdedness of pedestrian/cyclists to understand their influence on a road segment choice and preferences. A total of 803 respondents were recruited from Tianjin, China to complete the stated choice experiment through on-street face-to-face interviews. A multinomial logit model was estimated to unravel pedestrian/cyclist preferences using the stated choice data. The results indicate that pedestrians and cyclists have similar preferences for road segments with building lower than 6 floors, 50% retail shops in frontage, more greenery, lamps between 15 m and 30 m, more crossing facilities, wider sidewalk/bike lane and not crowded. These significant built environment attributes can be used in urban design projects with a walking/biking friendly built environment around a metro station.     

Inter-city travel behaviour adaptation to extreme weather events

Increased attention has been paid to travel behaviour in circumstances of extreme weather conditions that are expected with climate change, and the analyses usually address intra-city travel. There is lack of assessments on inter-city travel which has less redundancy and is more exposed to extreme weather threats. In addition, much of the research has been carried out in developed countries. This paper provides new perspectives by investigating how people adapt their inter-city travel behaviour to flooding impacts in Bangladesh. With an orthogonal design of three flooding scenarios, questionnaire data were collected in 14 coastal and inland areas. Results of the statistical analyses identify the significant impacts of flooding on people’s inter-city travel and reveal significant differences in attitudes and responses to flooding and extreme weather in coastal compared to inland locations. The main factors significantly affecting travel behaviour choice are road disruption, isolation by flood water, and flood frequency. These factors are felt differently in coastal and inland locations. The most common responses are cancelling trips or changing destinations. It is recommended that when making flooding adaptation decisions, it is important to protect road infrastructure and guarantee accessible routes in coastal areas, while offering more flood adaptation education to the inland people.     

Route choice of bike share users: Leveraging GPS data to derive choice sets

To identify the determinants of bike share users' route choices, this research collects 132,397 hub-to-hub global positioning system (GPS) trajectories over a 12-month period between April 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016 from 750 bicycles provided by Hamilton Bike Share (HBS). A GIS-based map-matching algorithm is used to derive users' routes along the cycling network within Hamilton, Ontario and generate multiple attributes for each route, such as route distance, route directness, average distance between intersections, and the number of turns, intersections, and unique road segments. Concerning route choice analysis, the origin and destination pair should be the same for all routes within a choice set, thus HBS users' trips are grouped by origin-destination hub pairs. Since trips taken by different users between a hub pair can follow the same route, unique routes are extracted using a link signature extraction tool. Following this, a normalized Gini (G_n) coefficient is calculated for each hub pair to evaluate users' preferences among all the unique hub-to-hub route choices. A G_n closer to 0 indicates that routes between a hub pair are more evenly used, while a value closer to 1 implies a higher preference toward one dominant route. Three route choice models, a global model, a medium G_n model, and a high G_n model, are estimated using Path-Size Logit to determine how route choice is affected by the presence of dominant routes. These models suggest that HBS users are willing to detour for some attributes, such as bicycle facilities, but tend to avoid circuitous routes, turns, steep slopes, and roads with high traffic volume.     

Operationalization of path walkability for sustainable transportation

Most walking travel behavior research thus far has tested area-based neighborhood walkability, which is measured with meso-level urban form attributes. In need of micro-level walkability analyses that focus on individual travelers and their routes, we propose a route-oriented linear walkability concept named “path walkability.” It is defined and measured by 42 path walkability indicators that can collectively represent an individual traveler's micro-level walkability. A graphic measurement instrument for an objective and efficient on-field walkability measurement is developed. This study also sets the protocol for quantitatively integrating the walkability data measured at the segment level into path walkability indicators that are comparable at the route level. To test the applicability of the proposed path walkability, a pilot case study is conducted within a station area. A user survey is administered to collect transit users' access mode choices and walking routes to the station. The survey results help identify two groups of street segments: one used by regular walkers and the other selected by habitual auto users/occasional walkers. The routes chosen by the two groups are quantitatively and graphically compared for walkability. The analyses show a physically measurable and quantitatively comparable difference between the routes' walkability and suggest criteria for walking-conducive transit walkability for station users. Specific design recommendations for improving street-level micro-walkability for future transit-oriented developments (TODs) are added along with a future research agenda.     

The capability of Motorways of the Sea of being competitive against road transport. The case of the Italian mainland and Sicily

The paper deals with a quantitative analysis on the competitiveness of intermodal transport, based on Motorways of the Sea (MoS), in comparison with all-road transport. This analysis is applied to MoS routes connecting the Italian mainland with Sicily. The study involves: a detailed intermodal network model which compares monetary costs and travel times from all relevant origins in the mainland to all relevant destinations in Sicily; and a survey carried out at some representative trucking firms operating to/from Sicily. The aim of the interviews has been: on one side to make a comparison between the theoretical and actual mode of transport and routes taken, and in case they are different, to understand the reasons of the discrepancy; on the other side to determine what are the main aspects taken into account by trucking companies in their modal choice, in order to understand how the competiveness of MoS against road transport can be improved. The results of the analysis show that the modal choice is affected by several elements: monetary costs and travel times; reliability of MoS routes; availability of MoS routes; MoS routes frequencies; but it resulted from the interviews that monetary costs and travel times are the most important factors considered by trucking companies in the modal and route choice. This study has also shown that an improvement of MoS routes on the Italian Adriatic side is necessary: actually, a strong reason for which in Italy MoS traffic is still a small percentage of road traffic is the low number of MoS routes currently in operation and their low frequency. This analysis could help decision makers, and maritime operators, to efficiently invest in the improvement of MoS routes. Moreover, this analysis, developed for an Italian case study, can be applied to other European and Mediterranean scenarios.     

Built environment,peak hours and route choice efficiency: An investigation of commuting efficiency using GPS data

Commuting efficiency measures the impact of commuting on urban spatial and social environments. Urban policies aim to reduce commuting distances and improve commuting efficiency by supporting mixed land-use and job-housing balance. Many studies have addressed these issues by examining excess commuting at the aggregate level, and most aggregated measurements of excess commuting are based on home-to-work commuting flows between zones. However, residents' travel behaviour does not consist solely of rational attempts at minimizing commuting distances but is instead affected by commuting hours, the complexity of the commuting chain and the built environment. Thus, commuting efficiency must be studied at the individual or disaggregated levels. This paper examined individual commuting efficiency in suburban Beijing using a GPS-facilitated activity-travel survey and investigated the differences in commuting distance and route choice efficiency between morning and evening peaks. Notably, in so doing, we considered non-work stops, and also explored the impact of urban spatial factors – in both residential and working areas – on commuting efficiency using multilevel mixed effects generalized linear models. The findings suggest that there are significant differences in commuting distance and commuting efficiency between morning and evening peaks based on the nature of commutes. Residents working in city centres or with jobs near railway stations, with higher road network densities or with lower facility densities seem to be more adept at selecting optimal routes.     

An agent based model concept for assessing modal share in inter-regional freight transport markets

This paper introduces an Agent based modelling approach to model inter-urban freight transport between two or more trading regions. The use of the model is to ascertain the modal share of competing transport modes (road and intermodal) while taking complex transport service supply–demand dynamics into account. It is structured by modules describing company generation, supplier choice, modal competition and International road freight transport market dynamics. The behaviour of individual actors is simulated using normative agent behaviour and market knowledge. Using the micro-simulation approach, shippers and carriers (primarily road hauliers and a maritime based intermodal operator) interact through simulated contracts resulting in the generation of tours. The service performance of the tours is fed back into the model for decision making during contract deliberations. Preliminary application of model to Mediterranean case study show that market share gains of around 25–30% are obtained with policy interventions of financial subsidies to intermodal services and more frequent shipping services in the intermodal transport respectively.     

A multimodal approach to assessing accessibility of a high-speed railway station

In China, accessibility has been profoundly improved by the large-scale construction and operation of high-speed rail (HSR), with far-reaching implications for population flows and socioeconomic development. As a novel attempt to compare the shortest travel times, accessible regions, service populations, and population potential of one- to four-hour isochrones under four scenarios in Tanggu Railway Station (i.e., base scenario, hypothetical scenario 1, hypothetical scenario 2, and actual scenario), this paper analyses three factors' influences on and contributions to accessibility change: the advent of HSR, conventional railway route adjustment, and road network improvement. The results indicate that station accessibility significantly improved from 2007 to 2012. HSR has not only brought a time-space contraction effect to the region from the station to the north-western area but also strengthened interactions among different regions. Due to the reduction of some conventional railway routes, the shortest travel times from the station to the north-eastern areas have slightly increased. Although this factor has some negative effects, it has not affected the ascending trend of enhanced accessibility. Road network improvement is identified as a key factor with balanced impacts on all four-hour isochrones. The results of this study generate supportive information for the planning and construction of HSR stations and networks and provide references for comprehensive transport policymaking.     

Local authority and academic attitudes to urban road pricing: a UK perspective

Urban road pricing as an instrument of traffic management has generated a great deal of interest in the UK in recent years. Whilst this is the case there is still no urban road pricing scheme in operation in the UK. The reason for this is primarily one of ‘acceptability.’ This paper, through the use of a national survey, examines the attitudes of key stakeholder groups with respect to urban road pricing. How serious is traffic congestion and traffic related pollution perceived to be by Local Authority Councillors, Officials and the Academic community in the UK? How is urban road pricing viewed by this sub-group of the population in terms of its effectiveness and public acceptance when compared to other policy options? and how could the saleability of urban road pricing be improved? This raises issues in terms of how the revenue raised from urban road pricing should be utilised, the use of urban road pricing as part of a package of measures, the concerns expressed by the stakeholders with respect to urban road pricing, such as the invasion of road users’ privacy, and the type of technology which should be considered. Overall, the paper aims to further the debate among policy makers.     

Investigating the associations between road network structure and non-motorist accidents

Road networks channel traffic flow and can impact the volume and proximity of walking and bicycling. Therefore, the structure of road networks—the pattern by which roads are connected—can affect the safety of non-motorized road users. To understand the impact of roads’ structural features on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, this study analyzes the associations between road network structure and non-motorist-involved crashes using data from 321 census tracts in Alameda County, California. Average geodesic distance, network betweenness centrality, and an overall clustering coefficient were calculated to quantify the structure of road networks. Three statistical models were developed using the geographically weighted regression (GWR) technique for the three structural factors, in addition to other zonal factors including traffic behavior, land use, transportation facility, and demographic features. The results indicate that longer average geodesic distance, higher network betweenness centrality, and a larger overall clustering coefficient were related to fewer non-motorist-involved accidents. Thus, results suggest that: (1) if a network is more highly centered on major roads, there will be fewer non-motorist-involved crashes; (2) a network with a greater average number of intersections on the shortest path connecting each pair of roads tends to experience fewer crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists; and (3) the more clustered road networks are into several sub-core networks, the lower the non-motorist crash count. The three structural measurements can reflect the configuration of a network so that it can be used in other network analyses. More information about the types of road network structures that are conducive to non-motorist traffic safety can help to guide the design of new networks and the retrofitting of existing networks. The estimation results of GWR models explain the spatial heterogeneity of correlations between explanatory factors and non-motorist crashes, which can support regional agencies in establishing local safety policies.     

An exact solution approach for vehicle routing and scheduling problems with soft time windows

A new column generation based exact optimization approach for the vehicle routing and scheduling problem with semi soft time windows (VRPSSTW) is presented. Elementary shortest path problem with resource constraints and late arrival penalties is solved as a subproblem, which rises from the Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition method. Exact solutions of VRPSSTW and hard time windows variant are compared on Solomon’s benchmark instances as well as on an instance based on Tokyo road network. It was found that the VRPSSTW solution results in fewer routes thus overall costs are reduced and late arrival penalties contribute only a small fraction to total cost.