The first stage in the project will be an exploratory analysis of the intra-individual variability of travel choices. This will give a first insights as to how much travel choices actually do vary over days and trips for an individual. The work builds on two data sources; the Swiss Mobidrive travel diary, on which mode and destination choice models can be estimated, and the Danish GPS-based AKTA data, on which route choice models can be estimated. Both data sets contains observations of each individual or car over several weeks.
The next step in the project is software development. There are currently no software packages designed for estimation of discrete choice models that incorporate multi-level panel effects. We therefore need to add this feature to the existing software package Biogeme (Bierlaire, 2003). Biogeme is a software package that is widely used in research in the context of discrete choice models.
In the third step mode and destination choice models are estimated on the data from the Mobidrive survey, and route choice models based on the AKTA data. The estimation will reveal the intra-individual distributions of preferences for level-of-service attributes, different modes and types of destinations. The choice of attributes for which we model multi-level panel effects is chosen to support the case study simulation in the next step. We are, for instance, particularly interested in variability in preferences for the different modes and values of time for trips entering or leaving the city centre.
In the fourth step we will carry out two case study simulations.
1) The simulation environment for mode and destination choice experiments can be either MATSim (www.matsim.org) or MiniStadt. There are both abstract as well as realistic scenarios ready for Switzerland and the Greater Zürich area. Using the model estimated in the previous step, we evaluate a hypothetical congestion charging system, in terms of net benefits and equity effects.
2) The simulation environment for route choice experiments will the the Copenhagen model developed by DTU Transport. This model already contain a number of different road pricing scenarios (Rich & Nielsen, 2007). The Traffic Analyst software is used for the route choice simulations. This software contains a great flexibility with regard to ability to model within and between individual taste variation, and also with regard to linkage between value of time and income and other socioeconomic variables.
Both cases compare the outcome of the evaluation where the preferences are taken to be fixed within individuals with the outcome where preferences are taken to be variable within individuals.
The project is part of a comprehensive CTS project program, where participants learn from each other in several ways and meet in workshops during the project.
The research results will be disseminated through the publication of three scientific papers, as well as through presentations at international conferences in the field of transport economics.
D1. Paper on the general results of intra-individual preference estimation in mode/destination choice models
D2. Paper on the general results with regard to route choice effects
D3-4. 1-2 papers on the specific results from the simulation case studies, analyzing effects of taking intra-individual preference variation into account in mode/destination choice and route choice, respectively.
The findings in all of these publications will presented at top international conferences and published in scientific journals.
One of the main dissemination channels is also the steady stream of seminars and lectures given by the partners directly to policy-makers. For example, researchers at the Centre for Transport Studies have acted as expert advisors to policy-makers from e.g. Norway, Italy, Netherlands, France, Indonesia, Thailand, Hungary, United States, United Kingdom and Finland etc. These contacts have been at various levels, from the civil servant level to direct communication with e.g. ministers, senators and members of national parliaments. The type of dissemination has varied from lectures and seminars to specific advice regarding e.g. strategies for implementation or scheme design. In these activities, results from several earlier research projects are used, and the results form the present project should be no exception. In our experience, these direct contacts with policy-makers, where results and conclusions from multiple research projects can be amalgamated to advice tailor-made for the policy-makers' specific context, is the most efficient dissemination channel imaginable.
The project will be led by Jonas Eliasson, with support from Maria Börjesson, both of whom are based at the Centre for Transport Studies at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden. Other major research teams are at Institut für Verkehrsplanung und Transportsysteme (team led by Kay Axhausen), Transport and Mobility Laboratory, at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Switzerland (team led by Michel Bierlaire) and DTU Transport (team led by Otto Anker Nielsen).
Several SURPRICE proposals have been submitted by the Centre for Transport Studies, Stockholm (CTS). Of those that are selected for funding, the project teams will actively collaborate, making expertise available across disciplines, facilitating events to foster increased dialog between the separate participants, and to share
administrative resources. By creating a structure for cooperation in advance, we will benefit from the close relation of subject matter between the various projects included throughout the lifetime of the projects. Each of the CTS projects includes this attachment as a supplement to the main proposal.
To supplement the project leader of each participating project, CTS will allocate a shared program office, responsible for cross-project collaborative activities, dissemination of research results, administrative reporting,
and financial management.
Collaborative activities will include:
• A kick-off event in Autumn 2010, where the project leaders and key collaborators will meet to present their project plans, allowing ample time for discussion and feedback from other project teams. The event will also allow personal contacts to be made across project teams, so that future feedback can be more easily obtained.
• An online collaboration platform for the CTS-SURPRICE projects, hosted by CTS, where members of the project teams can freely post current thoughts or results in an open forum, and where other project teams can freely comment. This platform will also include a blog, visible to the public, financers, and other stakeholders.
• A joint summary paper will be co-authored by select members of each project team and submitted to a scientific journal.
All four parts have a unique role and contribution to in this project, which are explained in section 4h.
Within each CTS-Surprice project, the collaborators contribute as given in the main text. The motivation behind the crossproject collaboration activities mentioned above is that there are contributions that individual experts working on one project could lend to other projects; and that these kinds of contributions should be encouraged, to the benefit of all of these projects.
As an example, there are several projects that concern "acceptability" as a key concept, but which take very different methodological approaches. International experts are participating in each of these projects, but their expertise could be even better utilized over several projects, by soliciting their participation in seminars, followup correspondence, and joint dissemination of results. This participation needs to be tempered by the demands of the respective projects in themselves, but we expect the net benefit to each project to be positive.
The communication within the project will be based on:
- research visits and joint workshops
- group-blog on dedicated web-page for all CTS-Surprice projects
- e-mail discussions
As to cross-project communication in the CTS-Surprice project package, the main means of communication across projects will be through personal contacts obtained at the kick-off seminar, and through the use of the collaboration tools, where even those who did not meet personally can begin to exchange feedback. Coordination of the cross-project events will be handled by the shared program office, and communication concerning the planning and participation in those events will go through them.