Travel Behavior and Activity Analysis
Analysis of travel behavior from the home can answer the question: How does the family participate in modern society. Consider two non-observable extremes. At one extreme we have the non-specialized household. It does everything for itself, and no travel is required. Ultimate specialization is the other extreme; travel is required for all things. Observed households are somewhere in between. The “in between” position of households might be thought of as the consequence of two matters.
- There is social and economic structure – the organization of society. To participate in this society, the household specializes its occupations, education, social activities, etc.
- The extent to which members of the household specialize turns on their attributes and resources.
Moore (1964) has observed that increasing specialization in all things is the chief feature of social change. Considering social changes, one might observe that 100 years ago things were less specialized compared to today. So we would expect lots of change in household travel over the time period. Data are not very good, but the travel time aspect of what’s available seems contrary to the expectation, travel hasn’t changed much. For instance, the time spent on the journey to work may have been stable for centuries (the travel budget hypothesis). Here are some travel time comparisons from John Robinson (1986).
| Men | Women | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Activity | 1975 | 1985 | 1975 | 1985 |
| Work Travel | 25 | 31 | 9 | 17 |
| Family Travel | 33 | 31 | 33 | 33 |
| Leisure Travel | 27 | 33 | 21 | 23 |
| Total | 85 | 94 | 63 | 73 |
Most travel behavior analysis concerns demand issues and do not touch very much on supply issues. Yet when we observe travel from a home, we are certainly observing some sort of market clearing process – demand and supply are matched.
Read more about this topic: Travel Behavior
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