Chapter 20 - Choice modeling perspectives on the use of interpersonal social networks and social interactions in activity and travel behavior

Abstract

Understanding the determinants of activities and travel is critical for transportation policymakers, planners, and engineers to design and manage transportation systems. These sociotechnical systems, and their externalities, are interwoven with social systems in communities, cities, regions, and societies. But discrete choice models – the predominant modeling tool for researching travel behavior and planning transportation systems – are grounded in theories of individual decision-making. This research expands knowledge about the incorporation of social interactions into activity-travel choice models in the areas of informational conformity as well as social capital and social network indicators. The chapter begins with a look at how social interactions can be incorporated into activity-based modeling systems – emphasizing the link between the context of decisions and social interactions to the social networks chosen for the analysis. This chapter provides a discussion of how social networks are incorporated into discrete choice models of social interactions with specific application in travel behavior. The state-of-the-art is described through two avenues of research: (1) methodological advancements in modeling social influence as taste variation and (2) efforts to develop a social capital theory of leisure activity behavior.