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Is it time to use activity-based urban transport models? A discussion of planning needs and modelling possibilities

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Abstract

For some decades now, transport researchers have put considerable efforts into develo** what is called activity-based approaches for modelling urban travel demand. The basic idea is that travel demand is derived from people’s desires to take part in different activities. In particular, the interrelationships among different activities with respect to temporal and spatial constraints are in focus. It means that such models treat the activities and the travelling of the households with respect to where and when the activities can be carried out and how they may be scheduled, given characteristics of the households and potential opportunities, the transport networks and various institutional constraints. We discuss what demands we see on future travel demand models, with a focus on urban analysis. This discussion is somewhat biased towards what role activity-based models could play in meeting these demands. We then review in some detail three prominent and distinctly different representatives of operational activity-based models to give an indication of what new modelling possibilities they offer. Theoretical appeal, empirical validity, usefulness for planning, need for data and easiness of implementation are discussed. In the final section we draw some conclusions about the prospects of these models and of their descendants.

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Notes

  1. Moreover, the logit model can be derived from principles of RUM as well as representing procedurally bounded rationality (Mattsson and Weibull, 2002).

  2. The description here is based on the comprehensive report RDC (1995). AMOS has also been described in many other, shorter reports, for example Kitamura et al. (1993), (1995); Kitamura and Fujii (1998); Pendyala et al. (1997) and (1998). The latest developments of AMOS are less well documented in publicly available sources, but indications are given in Pendyala et al. (1998).

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for helpful comments from four anonymous referees, as well as from Tommy Gärling, Stig Holmstedt, Jan Owen Jansson, Jan Söderström and Staffan Widlert. This research was given financial support from VINNOVA, the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems.

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Correspondence to Lars-Göran Mattsson.

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Algers, S., Eliasson, J. & Mattsson, LG. Is it time to use activity-based urban transport models? A discussion of planning needs and modelling possibilities. Ann Reg Sci 39, 767–789 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-005-0016-8

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