Structural Equation Modeling of Desired Travel Amounts

Why do some individuals want to travel more, and others less? Just asking this question is novel, as most transportation researchers consider travel to be strictly a cost necessary to participate in spatially-separated activities. That premise is challenged here in a "first principles" examination of travel behavior. Four key travel-related constructs are defined: Objective Mobility, Subjective Mobility, Travel Liking, and Relative Desired Mobility. A 1998 survey measured these variables for travel segmented by length, purpose, and mode, as well as attitudes, personality, lifestyle, and socio-demographics, for more than 1,300 workers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior analysis of this dataset has involved only single-equation models, and has exposed considerable endogeneity among the four key constructs. Here, structural equation modeling will be used to sort out the inter-relation¬ships among these endogenous variables, as well as other relationships present in the dataset. The findings will have important implications for our understanding and prediction of travel behavior.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $57498.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DTRT06-G-0022

  R01-5

• Sponsor Organizations:

  California Department of Transportation

  1227 O Street
  Sacramento, CA  United States  95843
• Performing Organizations:

  Sustainable Transportation Center/ITS-Davis

  ITS-Davis
  University of California, Davis
  Davis, CA  United States  95616
• Principal Investigators:

  Mokhtarian, Patricia

• Start Date: 20070501
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20090930
• Source Data: RiP Project 13139

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Mobility; Research projects; Travel; Travel behavior; Travel demand; Travel patterns; Travel time; Traveler information and communication systems
• Uncontrolled Terms: Objectivity
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Research;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01468481
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: University of California Transportation Center/Institute of Transportation Studies
• Contract Numbers: DTRT06-G-0022, R01-5
• Files: UTC, RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jan 3 2013 3:51PM