A Conceptual and Analytical Framework for Understanding Spatial and Travel Choices

Abstract

This paper focuses upon the development of a conceptual and analytical framework for the analysis of spatial and travel choice behavior under laboratory and field conditions. In particular, we develop a conceptual framework for an understanding of choice behavior and then briefly outline a more formal approach for the analysis of choice behavior as well as related value assignment behaviors under controlled conditions. We then provide evidence to suggest that this approach may be directly extended to real world choice problems in the field and that the results can provide important insights into processes of interest to human geography and related disciplines. En route we shall also provide critical commentary on the current practice of studying revealed choices. The study of choices among spatial or travel alternatives is certainly not new [5; 6; 7; 9; 16; 34]. Reviewing this literature from the perspective of the comments of Rushton [35] in the late 1960s, it is still clear that we have no postulates or theory about behavior independent of the initial conditions of the system within which it is observed. Notwithstanding the comments of econometricians engaged in the development, extension, and application of discrete choice theory in travel demand and related areas, such theory can never be independent of the initial conditions. This is because the parameters of the models demand data from the system