Week-to-Week Leisure Trip Frequency and Its Variability

Abstract

Using a 6-week travel diary survey from Germany, this study examined the effect of the frequency of leisure trips per week on the variability in the number of such trips over weeks. The frequency of trips and the variability were measured for six activity types: social contact, sports, recreation, culture and learning, nature, and shopping. A two-stage model, consisting of tobit and ordinary least-squares approaches, was used with dependent variables of trip frequency per week and variability of trips over weeks, respectively. The results showed that the frequency of leisure trips influenced their variability in certain activity types. The effects vary substantially across activity types.