Factors Influencing the Travel Scheduling of Driving Trips of Habitual Car Users

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis of scheduling and rescheduling decisions that are associated with driving trips of habitual car users and that employs a new data set for processing of activity travel schedules collected in Valencia, Spain, in 2010. A bivariate probit model with sample selection is used to accommodate the influence of planning on the decision to execute a trip as planned or not. The explicative variables included in the model are socioeconomic characteristics of respondents, travel characteristics, and facets of the activity at origin and the activity executed at destination, including the scheduling process decisions associated with them. The results demonstrate that a significant correlation exists between the choice of planning and rescheduling a driving trip. Other findings suggest that characteristics of the activity at destination, including the scheduling process decisions, have a greater influence on the choice of planning or executing spontaneously than the characteristics of the activity at origin. In contrast, characteristics and scheduling of the activity at origin have significantly more influence on the decision of rescheduling or not rescheduling a planned driving trip than attributes of the activity at destination.