A BEHAVIORAL APPROACH TO MODELING ROUTE CHOICE DECISIONS WITH REAL TIME INFORMATION

摘要

Advanced Travel Information Systems (ATIS) are designed to provide real time information assisting drivers to choose the shortest path among various routes and save travel time. Psychological research suggests that routechoice models can be improved by adding realistic behavioral assumptions. However, different generalizations imply deviations in different directions. Specifically, different choices arise when decisions are taken on the basis of information compared to those taken on the basis of personal experience. This paper presents an experimental study of route choices investigating the combined effects of information and experience on route choice decisions in a simulated environment whereby the participants can rely on a description of travel time variability and at the same time can rely also on personal experience through feedback. The experiment consisted of a simple two route network, one route on average faster than the other with three traffic scenarios representing different travel time ranges. Respondents were divided to two groups: with real-time information and without. Both groups received feedback information of their actual travel time. During the experiment, participants chose repeatedly between the routes in various scenarios. The results show that effect of information is positive and more evident when participants lack long-term experience on the distributions of travel times. Furthermore, information seems to increase initial risk seeking behavior, reduce initial exploration and contribute to between subject risk-attitudes differences. These findings have implications for cost-effective ATIS design especially in the conditions characterized by non recurrent congestion. Based on this data we estimate an advanced discrete choice model using mixed logit forms to capture the combined effects of information and experience in route choice decisions.