Flexibility and Time Dependence in Activity Scheduling Models

Abstract

Activity scheduling models describe how people build daily activity schedules, given the opportunities and constraints they face. Many current models fail to adequately account for interdependence of these opportunities and constraints over time. This limits their ability to model aspects of behavior such as routine patterns, the desire for flexibility, and responses to urgent needs. Time dependence issues affect user responses to many transportation policies, including ridesharing incentives, flex-time, and paratransit strategies. Time dependence can be better captured by conceptualizing the activity scheduling process as a regulation and control process, the objective of which is to obtain an activity program that is both feasible and personally optimal. Activity schedules evolve over time as a result of regulatory action taken in response to the arrival of disturbances. An example is provided to illustrate the application of these concepts to the activity scheduling process. While it can incorporate useful ideas previously forwarded by researchers, control theory provides a framework for further theoretical and empirical development.