Destination Choice Model for Commercial Vehicle Movements in Metropolitan Area

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a destination choice model for the movements of commercial vehicles in a metropolitan area. The proposed model has two major differences from other regional commercial vehicle models in the United States: (a) the model is stratified by commercial vehicle type and trip purpose jointly, instead of by vehicle type only; and (b) the model employs the technique of discrete choice modeling instead of using a traditional gravity model. With this technique, nonimpedance variables could be tested for inclusion in the utility function of the model. The study found that, besides travel time being a strong predictor, interarea-type dummy variables were statistically significant in truck-related submodels that push truck trips to less developed areas. Intercounty dummy variables were attempted as a proxy for intercounty economic interaction and found statistically significant in several submodels. Both the interarea-type and intercounty dummy variables add explanatory power to the model. The model estimation results indicate that the model fits the data well, with likelihood ratio index (ρ2) values ranging from .24 to .32. This research effort demonstrates that a destination choice model stratified by both vehicle types and trip purposes can be successfully developed and employed for modeling commercial vehicle trip distribution.