Quantifying Reductions in Commute Disutility from Traveler Information Services

Abstract

An approach is presented for quantifying commute disutility measures. The approach was demonstrated through a case study conducted for the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area by using an analytical technique called the heuristic on-line web-linked arrival time estimation. “Commute disutility” was defined as having pretrip, en route, and posttrip components on the assumption that there is disutility associated with a commuter's expectation of the trip before trip start, the en route trip experience, and the actual outcome of the trip. Three types of regular commuters were modeled: the nonuser who does not use any traveler information and two kinds of traveler information user–the radio listener who listens to commercial broadcast traffic advisories and the advanced traveler information service user who uses a notification-based service that provides route-specific travel time estimates. Analysis showed that compared to nonusers, traveler information users had lower commute disutility. They had fewer late arrivals at their destinations, and in fewer instances their trip expectation before trip start did not match their actual trip experience. They had fewer instances of feeling at intermediate waypoints along a trip that they were running behind schedule. They modified their trip start times or took alternate routes on more than 65% of the trips. This may have resulted in some disutility because of changes to the regular commute behavior, but they are more informed and therefore more confident of the potential trip outcome than is a nonuser.