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The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the way we live and travel, possibly for many years to come. The 'New Normal' seems to be one that is best associated with living with COVID-19 rather that 'after COVID-19'. After a year or more since the pandemic spread throughout the world, we have amassed a significant amount of evidence on what this is likely to mean for patterns of commuting activity in a setting where working for home (WFH) is becoming a more popular and legitimate alternative to choosing a commuting mode. With WFH continuing to some extent, non-commuting travel is also likely to change as workers and their families have greater flexibility in when and to what extent they conduct their shopping, social-recreation and other non-commuting trip activity. This paper recognises that all trip purpose activity is being impacted by the pandemic and that the drivers of changing number of trips by each and every trip purpose need to be identified as a way of establishing likely future levels of frequency of all trip making. In this paper we develop a series of trip making models for workers and non-workers in New South Wales and Queensland in a metropolitan and a regional setting, using data collected in late 2020. The influence of the number of days WFH is identified as an important influence on the number of one-way weekly trips for various trip purposes, which together with socioeconomic, geographic and attitudinal variables enable us to gain an understanding of what is driving levels of trip-purpose-specific travel during the pandemic. Elasticities and simulated changes are presented as a behaviourally rich way to understand the sensitivity of influences on the frequency of travel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The positive effects that Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) is envisioned to have on transport can only be reaped if people are using MaaS. Yet, the understanding of the user perspective on MaaS is incomplete and primarily based on experiments with non-users. To address this shortcoming, this paper reports user experiences from a trial of a high-level MaaS service in Sydney, Australia. Based on questionnaires and interviews, it analyses who participated in the trial and why, and whether the trial experience satisfied their motives. The contribution to the literature on MaaS is three-fold. Firstly, most of the people that participated in the trial were frequent users of both public transport and private cars. This supports the notion that multi-modal travellers are likely early adopters of MaaS and contradicts the fear that MaaS does not appeal to private car users. Secondly, a desire to contribute to innovation and curiosity about MaaS were the main motives for signing up for the trial, which highlights the important role an inviting setting for experimentation, such as a trial, can play in stimulating MaaS adoption. Thirdly, many participants struggled with making the trialled service work for them and on average they seemed to value the support and feedback functions higher than other service features. This underscores the novelty of MaaS, compared to existing service models, and reiterates the notion that more than an app and a few subscription plans is needed to make MaaS useful for users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tyres are an expensive input into the cost of a bus business, yet very little is known about what impact an improvement in the performance of tyres, linked in part to improved maintenance practices, might have not only in reducing the costs of tyres but its impact on fuel consumption and overall maintenance costs. This paper uses data collected over a 12 month period from a bus operator in Sydney where we fitted sensors on all tyres of 35 buses monitored on a monthly data capture plan, which together with data obtained from a telematics system installed in each bus and other data describing the operating environment, enabled us to develop a system of equations to identify endogenous and exogenous influences on tread depth loss of each tyre and fuel consumption, and to map this into implications on maintenance costs. The estimated model system is built into a decision support system to investigate ways in which a bus business can improve its cost efficiency through a changed tyre-related maintenance and operating regime. The findings suggest significant opportunities to improve cost efficiency by a careful review of the decisions related to the practices associated with tyres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decision to initiate medication is complex and is influenced by a variety of factors. There is limited information on the relative importance of factors that influence the initiation of ADHD medication. To investigate the factors, and their relative importance, that influence the decision to initiate medication in adults, and parents of children, with ADHD. A discrete choice experiment was conducted using eight choice tasks made up of five attributes that described the outcomes of initiating medication. A mixed multinomial logit model was used to estimate preferences for medication. Respondents' overall preferences for initiating medication were negative (Mean (β)= −0.72705, p < 0.1), however, significant heterogeneity was noted in preferences (SD: 0.93604, p < 0.001). Side-effects were the most important factor for both adults (Relative importance (RI) = 40.39%) and parents (RI = 41.99%). Improvement in education had a greater weighting in adults' decision-making compared to parents (RI = 36.93% vs 30.47%) while improvement in aggressive (RI = 14.38% vs 11.84%) and social behaviour (RI = 12.59% vs 10.37%) was more important to parents. Important differences in preferences of patients and parents were identified, highlighting that the decision to initiate medication is influenced differently in different individuals and groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Adherence to medication for attention‐deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is less than optimal. Previous studies have primarily focused on qualitative assessment of factors that influence medication adherence. Objective: This study aimed to quantify the factors that influence patient and parent preferences for continuing ADHD medication. Method: A discrete‐choice experiment was conducted to investigate preferences. Adults, and parents of children, with ADHD were presented with eight hypothetical choice tasks of three options (Medication A, Medication B, No Medication) described by six attributes related to medication outcomes. Preferences were estimated using a mixed multinomial logit model. Results: Overall, respondents' preferences (n = 216) for continuing medication were negative (mean [β] = −1.426, p <.001); however, a significant heterogeneity in preferences was observed amongst respondents (standard deviation = 0.805, p <.001). Improvements in education, aggressive behaviour, social behaviour and family functioning, and side effects and stigma, influenced respondents' decision to continue taking medication. The respondents were willing to continue medication if they experienced positive effects, but side effects (even moderate) were the strongest concern for not continuing medication. While side effects were the most important factor for both adult patients and parents of children with ADHD, improvement in education was relatively more important for adults and improvement in aggressive behaviour, social behaviour and family functioning was relatively more important for parents of children with ADHD. Parents were more likely to not continue a medication with severe side effects even at the highest level of improvement in education. Conclusions: Side effects are the most important factor that influenced preferences for continuing medication for both adults with ADHD, as well as parents of children with ADHD. While overall the respondents preferred not to take/give medication, discrete‐choice experiment showed that the relative importance of factors that influenced continuation of medications was different for the two groups. Patient and Public Involvement: Adults, and parents of children, with ADHD participated in this study by completing the online questionnaire. The questionnaire was based on findings of research in the literature, as well as earlier focus groups conducted with adults, and parents of children, with ADHD. The face validity of the questionnaire was determined by asking parents of children, and adults, with ADHD (n = 3) to complete the survey and participate in a short discussion on their understanding of the questions and their recommendations on improving the clarity of the survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous choice studies have proposed a way to condition the utility of each alternative in a choice set on experience with the alternatives accumulated over previous periods, defined either as a mode used or not in a most recent trip, or the mode chosen in their most recent trip and the number of similar one-way trips made during the last week. The paper found that the overall statistical performance of the mixed logit model improved significantly, suggesting that this conditioning idea has merit. Experience was treated as an exogenous influence linked to the scale of the random component, and to that extent it captures some amount of the heterogeneity in unobserved effects, purging them of potential endogeneity. The current paper continues to investigate the matter of endogeneity versus exogeneity. The proposed approach implements the control function method through the experience conditioning feature in a choice model. We develop two choice models, both using stated preference data. The paper extends the received contribution in that we allow for the endogenous variable to have an impact on the attributes through a two stage method, called the Multiple Indicator Solution, originally implemented in a different context and for a single (quality) attribute, in which stage two is the popular control function method. In the first stage, the entire utility expression associated with all observed attributes is conditioned on the prior experience with an alternative. Hence, we are capturing possible correlates associated with each and every attribute and not just one selected attribute. We find evidence of potential endogeneity. The purging exercise however, results in both statistical similarities and differences in time and cost choice elasticities and mean estimates of the value of travel time savings. We are able to identify a very practical method to correct for possible endogeneity under experience conditioning that will encourage researchers and practitioners to use such an approach in more advanced non-linear discrete choice models as a matter of routine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in modal preferences remains a topic of high interest as governments make infrastructure decisions that often favour one mode over the other. An informative input into the infrastructure selection process should be the preferences of residents, since they can guide buy into support political and bureaucratic choice making. Cost–benefit analysis (CBA) uses the self-interest preferences of individuals as the relevant interpretation of 'individual preferences count', which in aggregate represent the benefit to society of candidate investments. However, the CBA benefit calculations can be rather restrictive with other preference metrics often being identified and used in various ways to inform the debate on infrastructure support. In this paper we assess how the preferences for bus rapid transit (BRT) and light rail transit (LRT) change with different roles the residents may play: a citizen or altruistic resident, a self-interested resident, a tax-payer, and as a voter. We use data collected in five countries to investigate preference differences and also to establish whether there is replicability of the findings across geographical jurisdictions. The findings suggest that there are, in general, noticeable differences in preference revelation across the metrics; however there are also both similarities and differences in the role of specific attribute drivers (as represented by willingness to pay, and magnitude of support for a specific mode) within and between preference metrics across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decisions made by businesses on where to locate or relocate are typically given less consideration than residential location in integrated transport and land use modelling systems. This is surprising given the important role that businesses play in defining employment opportunities, and hence the travel patterns of workers and any travel associated with accessing firms. As part of a larger study on giving firm location choices an endogenous representation in an integrated model system, this paper reviews the existing literature on the drivers of location and relocation decisions in various geographical jurisdictions. The findings provide a starting position in the design of future firm-specific surveys, and especially the attributes that are candidates for stated choice experiments and for inclusion in firm location utility equations embedded in integrated strategic model systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]