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Although interest in the concept of tradable driving credits (TDC) has increased in recent years, empirical research into the potential effects of such a measure is scarce. The study reported in this paper employed an activity-based approach to investigate drivers’ responses to two distance-based TDC scenarios. Three hundred and eight Dutch frequent car commuters participated in an online stated adaptation experiment in which they recorded their car use for 7 days and, in response to the TDC scenarios, had the opportunity to reorganise their car use pattern, if desired. This paper investigates adaptation behaviours at the trip level. The results show that approximately 30% of trips made for maintenance and leisure-oriented activities were subject to change. In cases of change, a travel mode change was the most preferred adaptation strategy. A mixed logit modelling framework is used to test the effect of a variety of activity/trip attributes, TDC scenario attributes, and individual characteristics on the preference for adaptation alternatives.

There is increasing interest in the concept of tradable driving credits (TDC) as an alternative road pricing measure. To a considerable extent, this interest is inspired by the belief that TDC will address some major equity-related concerns, which are often raised in the case of traditional road pricing, because the measure is revenue-neutral, offers an opportunity for individuals to gain, and guarantees a minimum amount of ‘free’ travel through the allocation of personal credit allowances. This study investigates the acceptability of a proposed kilometre-based TDC scheme for personal car use. By analysing data from the Netherlands and China (Beijing), opinions towards TDC and its determinants are studied in two different cultural, societal and institutional contexts. Acceptability was much higher in Beijing: 67% compared to 22% in the Netherlands. We relate this difference to higher congestion levels in Beijing and the city’s current license plate-based driving restriction policy, compared to which TDC is evaluated to be more effective and fair by a majority of the participants. Having a higher income was positively related with acceptability in both countries, as were expected effectiveness and fairness. The effect of perceived fairness was particularly strong in Beijing.

A considerable amount of studies have indicated that people to some extent select themselves in specific neighbourhoods allowing them to travel in their desired way. Although a lot of studies analysed the degree to which travel preferences affect the residential location choice, few studies looked at the effect of a residential relocation on people's travel behaviour and attitudes. A new residential context has the potential to disrupt previous travel choices and could potentially change people's attitudes. This study – using 1539 recently relocated residents in the city of Ghent (Belgium) – analyses self-reported changes in mode frequency and travel attitudes after a relocation, and uses a cohort approach to look at mode frequency and attitudes at different times after the relocation took place. Results suggest that (i) travel attitudes often influence the residential location choice, and (ii) both travel attitudes and travel mode choice change after a relocation, albeit in different ways depending on the current (urban versus suburban) and previous residential neighbourhood (more/equally/less urbanised). This study also suggests that a (possible) dissonance between travel attitudes and the residential neighbourhood is partly a temporal situation, as attitudes can gradually change in accordance with the new residential environment.

This paper investigates the spatial structure of students’ leisure trips and to what extent locational characteristics of social network partners influence decisions about their joint leisure activities and travel. To this end a survey was held among university students asking them about details of their last leisure trip made with a friend. Cluster analysis suggests that four typical leisure trip patterns can be derived. Three clusters seem to be determined by the residential locations of ego and alter. Depending on the residential distance between ego and alter, leisure trip distances are either short for ego and alter (if residential distance is very short), somewhat longer for both (if residential distance is slightly longer) or long for at least one partner (if residential distance is large). A fourth cluster includes cases with long leisure trips for both partners, independent of residential distance, representing cases where specific destinations are visited. A more detailed analysis of travel distance suggests that travel distance depends on size of the residential municipality, residential distance and objective and perceived quality of leisure facilities such as cafes, bars and restaurants. Overall, our study provides support for the idea that leisure trip decisions should be understood on the level of social network ties (i.e. ego and alter) rather than based on individual characteristics only. Also, it provides support for the idea that a focus on single ties, rather than on the structure of social networks as a whole, increases our insight in leisure trip decision making.Keywords: Social network links, Social-recreational travel, Spatial context, Students

Recent research suggests that travellers’ anticipated trip utility may differ from the utility they actually experience when making the trip. This implies that it is important to investigate not only the factors underlying trip decision making, but also the actual experience of the trip. To that end, this paper presents an empirical test of the satisfaction with travel scale (STS) that was developed to measure travellers’ satisfaction with travel. STS measures travel satisfaction in terms of two affective (positive activation versus negative de-activation and positive de-activation versus negative activation) and one cognitive dimension. The STS was applied in the Netherlands in a survey of car users. The results suggest that the reliability of the measurement scales is satisfactory to good, and that they are indicative of an overarching concept of travel satisfaction. Regression analyses carried out with the three STS dimensions as dependent variables show that STS is influenced by experienced traffic safety, annoyance with other road users, the trip being tiring, being distracted by billboards, and lack of freedom to choose speed and lane. In addition, travel purpose and personal characteristics play a role. Overall, the findings provide support for the validity of the STS as a tool to measure satisfaction with travel. It is concluded that using tools such as STS may provide relevant insights into how qualitative and design-related factors influence the attractiveness of trips made by car or other travel modes.

This article investigates the influence of both mobility events and household events on modal shift decision for bicycle commuting using data collected from a retrospective survey in the Netherlands. The results from a mixed-logit analysis illustrate the influence of several life events on commute modal shifts in addition to changes in commute time and sociodemographic variables. Job characteristics such as changes in work status and employer, mobility resource, long-term mobility events, and household events are seen to influence commuting decision by bicycle.

Research has recently questioned the commonly held opinion that travel time is valued as negative, arguing that engagement in activities during travel may make these trips more enjoyable or productive. Satisfaction with travel has to date been assessed using utility-based models or measures of productivity of the trip. The present study is the first to assess the influence of activities performed during travel on public transport users’ subjective well-being. To this end, a survey was conducted in Sweden in 2010 in which activities during the work commute by public transport were recorded and subjective well-being during travel was measured retrospectively using the Satisfaction with Travel Scale (STS). Results show that talking to other passengers has the strongest positive effect on STS, whereas activities related to entertainment and relaxation lead to lower STS, possibly since engaging in these activities reflect unsuccessful attempts to abate boredom. In addition, it is found that activities during travel may have a more positive effect on the commute back home, suggesting that the mindset related to the destination influences travel satisfaction.

Leisure travel makes up a very significant part of daily travel and therefore needs to be considered in any travel demand management or general land use and transportation policy. Yet, research into leisure mobility has tended to ignore important aspects of leisure travel, such as its joint character, i.e. its dependence on the participation of other people and the important part played by characteristics of the sites where leisure activities are conducted, as well as the link between leisure activities and the dynamics in people’s social networks. This paper introduces a relational approach to leisure activities and travel, which studies joint leisure activities and travel within the webs of relations – the assemblages of people, artefacts, as well as ideas, emotions and other immaterial phenomena – in which they are situated. Two such webs deserve particular attention: the social ties that people have with others and particular configurations of elements (buildings, infrastructure, nature, people, etc.) that collectively make up ‘places’. A key idea of our approach is that two-way connections exists between single instances of leisure and the longer term, structural phenomena of the social tie and place. We expand the relational approach in relation to the decision whether or not to engage in joint leisure and the location choice. For each dimension, we review relevant literature and elaborate the relational approach in terms of the relations among people, artefacts, other forms of materiality and the ideas, norms, affects that hold them together and circulate between them.

Developments in transportation and information and communication technologies (ICTs) have facilitated the process labeled activity fragmentation. In this process, the weakened associations between activity, time, and place that ICTs made possible facilitate the disintegration of activities into smaller subtasks, which can then be performed at different times and at different locations. However, until now discussion of the fragmentation of activity hypothesis has been limited to the theoretical domain and largely absent from the empirical domain. In the study reported here we connect both domains by (1) developing a set of measures of activity fragmentation and (2) applying them to study the fragmentation of the activity of paid work using combined activity, travel, and communica- tion diary data collected in the Netherlands in 2007 in order to assess the performance of these indicators. The results show that the indicators differentiate between the multiple facets of activity fragmentation (such as the number, dispersion, and configuration of fragments). The preliminary analyses also suggest that, although the temporal fragmentation of activities appears to be or to have become more common, spatial activity fragmentation is rather limited.

Recent advances in integrated land use and transport modeling have included a shift from aggregate-level modeling to disaggregate, household-level modeling. One potential advantage of this shift is that interdependencies of changes that influence household decisions can be more systematically modeled. However, existing models have not embraced this opportunity fully. Especially in the context of long-term mobility decisions (relocation/car ownership), decisions made on the basis of various dimensions are modeled as independent and cross sectional, whereas in reality they are strongly interlinked. To address these shortcomings, this paper proposes a conceptual framework that offers a more general approach to modeling the dynamics and interdependences across different time horizons of a household’s lifecycle and mobility decisions. The framework incorporates the concept of stress, defined as a discrepancy between a household’s present situation and its aspiration level, which in turn depends, among other things, on the household’s social network. Bayesian belief networks are used to represent the complex direct and indirect dependencies between life-cycle events and long- and short-term mobility decisions.

This paper addresses an exploratory study about the mediated influence of a set of location and accessibility attributes along with firm types and the effect on office firm closures. We use a proportional hazard modeling approach, examining the probability that an office firm will go out of business in any given year, conditional on the fact that it did not go out of business in the years prior, Variables include urbanization levels and regional effects; accessibility to airports, train stations, shopping centers and the roadway network; availability of parking facilities and schools; demographic and economic aspects; effects of agglomeration economies; rent price; and the type of economic activity of the office firm. Most of them presented significant information to assist in the explanation of the firm closure. Also, interaction effects between covariates and firm types brought a better understanding about the firm closure patterns in relation to urban characteristics. Assessing firm closures is an element of a firm demographic approach and overall dynamics. In turn, this is part of a multiagent system to simulate the co-evolution of firm dynamics and changes in activity-travel patterns.

The advance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has changed travellers’ appreciation of travel distance in various ways. In the context of telecommuting, ICT increasingly allows us to work from home one or more days per week. One hypothesis that has been put forward is that because ICTs reduce the frequency of commuting, it allows workers to accept longer commute distances, implying that telecommuters have a different valuation of travel distance than regular commuters and would also favour more peripheral residential locations. The question can be raised, however, whether telecommuters can be regarded as a homogeneous group with respect to their valuation of commute distance and residential preferences. To investigate the heterogeneity of commuters’ and telecommuters’ preferences, latent class discrete choice models of workers’ intended relocation probability and preferred residential environment were estimated. The results suggest that telecommuting is not a factor that can be used to identify segments with different residential preferences. However, within the group of telecommuters, two different classes can be identified, which can be characterised as being sensitive and insensitive to commute distance.

Recently, several accessibility measures using the space–time prism concept have been suggested in the literature. These measures fail to take into account (i) the ability of individuals to adjust their activity–travel patterns in coping with constrained choice sets, (ii) uncertainty in the perception of travel times, (iii) temporal variability of travel times, and (iv) the influence of travel information on accessibility. The aim of the present article is to contribute to this literature by addressing these four shortcomings. Theory will be developed and illustrated using numerical simulations. The results suggest that the accessibility measure proposed in this article is a useful indicator of social inclusion in terms of the time individuals can spend to conduct their preferred activities. Moreover, accessibility is found to be affected by the presence of schedule delay penalties, restrictions in time allocation to activities, and the provision of travel time information in order to reduce uncertainty.

The aim of this paper is to compare two congestion management schemes road-pricing and peak avoidance rewarding and their impact on commuter behaviour, based on two studies that were conducted in the Netherlands. The road-pricing study is based on stated preference data, whereas the study involving rewards was conducted in the context of a longitudinal field experiment. Given the substantial differences in data sources and analytical techniques applied beforehand, the comparison is made at an indicative level. It can be cautiously concluded that, as psychological theory predicts, rewarding is more effective in diverting commuters from peak periods. In both cases, the most popular alternative to peak-driving is off-peak driving. Most of the change in behaviour is attributed to introducing the new measure, whereas the impact of different price/reward levels is marginally decreasing in sensitivity and effectiveness. The short-term and long-term policy implications of these findings on the implementation of both measures are further discussed. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper presents an intraurban cellular automata model that is an extension to White and Engelen’s pioneering model. The paper’s main contribution is to distinguish between agglomerative effects, determined by the attraction of the neighbourhood, and disagglomerative effects, driven by land prices, or land affordability. In order to do that, social heterogeneity is introduced in the model at the intraurban level. As a result, we can simulate both the evolution of land use and land prices. An application of the model and a sensitivity analysis indicate that neighborhood influence is the main driving force of cities’ spatial configurations. Prices, however, exert an important countereffect. Actually, the higher the influence of land prices, the faster land succession is observed. Finally, an important conclusion of the model is that intraurban models should not fail to differentiate actors by income level. Keywords: cellular automata, intraurban analysis, land prices, income-differentiated urban actors, urban modelling

A potential effect of ICTs is that they alleviate the traditional space-time constraints of paidwork activities and allow for the decomposition of work into multiple segments of subtasks, which can be performed at different times and/or locations. Such separation of activities into discrete pieces is commonly termed the fragmentation of activity. Regrettably, only limited empirical evidence is available on the fragmentation of work activity and the factors that contribute to it. The goal of this paper is to extend the previous work in the activity fragmentation arena in three ways: (i) to operationalize measures of spatial fragmentation and reformulate some of the temporal fragmentation measures for the specific purpose of investigating the fragmentation of the work activity; (ii) to analyse fragmentation not only in terms of the individual indicators, but also as a multi-dimensional construct including all dimensions of spatial and temporal fragmentation collectively; (iii) to test a detailed set of ICT-related, workrelated, and sociodemographic variables to identify the factors that are crucial in the occurrence of the fragmentation of the work activity. The study shows that there is heterogeneity in the fragmentation of work. Three internally homogenous patterns of fragmentation, which diverge in the degree of fragmentation, are identified: (1) a less temporally and spatially fragmented work pattern; (2) a less spatially and more temporally fragmented work pattern; (3) a more spatially and temporally fragmented work pattern. The multiple discriminant analysis suggests that ICT variables and work-related variables as well as personal-household attributes are associated with the fragmentation of work. However, the degree of association differs considerably among representative patterns of fragmentation.

This paper deals with the potential participation in a reward scheme to avoid peak hour driving. Using rewards in the context of congestion is novel compared to the attention received by road pricing. Psychological research emphasizes the importance of incentives such as rewards in promoting long term behavior changes. In the Netherlands, reward schemes have been tested as part of the ‘Spitsmijden’ project. This study analyzes participation based on a survey of non-participants. Ordered Logit (OL) and mixed ordered logit discrete choice models were specified. The results show that participation is linked to working time flexibility, constraints in the household and the workplace and especially to personal motivations. These results provide critical insights in the formulation of a more coherent and flexible policy on transportation demand management and the development of a more robust tool kit for the inducement of large-scale behavioral changes.

While many studies have been conducted about the allocation of household duties within households, little is known about the impact of land use and accessibility on the distribution of out-of-home household tasks between spouses and about men's participation in such activities. This paper addresses this impact, while controlling for the impact of household structure, life cycle, employment status and hours, access to transport systems, and interactions among activities in persons' activity schedules. Path models for male–female couples in the Amsterdam–Utrecht corridor, the Netherlands, show that land use and accessibility influence between-partner interactions in maintenance activity participation, although their role appears to be smaller than that of sociodemographics and access to transport systems. While women perform the bulk of out-of-home household tasks, men are responsible for a larger share of out-of-home household duties in neighbourhoods characterised by a higher population density and/or more diversity of land uses than they are in lower density and/or less diverse neighbourhoods. However, women's responsibilities are not reduced to the same extent, because spouses' joint participation is also somewhat larger in higher density, more diverse neighbourhoods and because part of men's participation in these neighbourhoods reflects household activities not undertaken elsewhere.

The estimation results are reported of a model of activity scheduling behavior, based on an interactive computer experiment. The model combines the positive features of discrete choice modeling and computational process modeling of activity scheduling decisions. In particular, it describes the pre - trip planning phase, in which individuals decide which activities to perform, where, when, in which sequence and how to travel to the various activity sites. The results indicate that when scheduling their activities, subjects seem to trade - off attributes of activities (time constraints, duration) against attributes of the schedule (time spent on activities, overall travel time).

Traditionally, along with stages of the life cycle and changes in people’s financial status and their household composition, the commute distance has been identified as one of the main explanatory factors for residential locational preferences and subsequent migration flows. In the Netherlands, telecommuting is rapidly becoming popular and is expected to affect residential locational preferences. A hypothesis that can be raised is that telecommuting has an impact on the effect that commute distance has on residential preferences. Based on this hypothesis, this paper investigates the role of telecommuting alongside the traditional factors currently explaining residential locational preferences. The paper provides evidence that, in the Netherlands, telecommuting has enabled people to commute longer distances. The effect of telecommuting on the probability of relocating, however, is not significant. Telecommuting appears to have a limited effect on residential location preferences, but traditional factors, such as life cycle stages, remain the dominant explanatory factors.