The Impact of Socio-Economic, Land Use, and Travel Related Variables on Escort and Non-Escort Intermediate Stops on Work Tours

Abstract

Stop frequency prediction model is one of the components of the activity-based travel demand models. Most of the previous studies have considered stops during commutes regardless of their purposes. This approach does not yield the contribution of the explanatory variables to the likelihood of making stops of different purposes. Besides, most of the former studies have been conducted in larger metropolitan areas. This study attempts to cover these gaps by using 2012 travel data of Fargo-Moorhead medium-sized US metropolitan area and classifying stops on work tours into escort, non-escort, and a combination of all stops. The results of logit models indicate that personal characteristics of the commuters do not contribute to the escort stop participation likelihood. In addition, household size variables have a large impact on the likelihood of participating in escort stops and participating in the combined stops on the outbound leg of the commutes. Contrary to several previous studies, the significance and sign of the coefficient of income level vary for different stop purposes. Commuters seemed to be more likely to make more than one non-escort stop close to their workplace on the outbound legs of their commutes. The general results suggest separating the stop purposes yields more illustrative results rather than using one model for the combined stops.