Spatial Microanalysis and Equity Assessment of Joint Relationships among Destination Choice, Activity Duration, and Mode Choice

Sponsor: Pacific Southwest Region 9 University Transportation Center, US Department of Transportation, and UCSB. This project combines multiple strands of research and develops a new integrated framework for spatial choice modeling and simulation. We use ideas emerging from our own research in motif and sequence analysis based on the 2017 National Household Travel Survey for California. This is then complemented with other external data at the business establishment microlevel. We develop a structural behavioral model that shows spatial correlation among destinations, duration of activity at each destination and the mode chosen to travel to each activity location considered as forming activity chains/tours. Then, we post process the data to identify segments of the population that face unsurmountable barriers in activity participation and therefore become de facto excluded from opportunities. This project advances science in the combination of built environment data with individual/household behavior and in the formulation of a new generation of core models for modeling and simulation for large scale urban simulation model systems. The methods we develop here have applications in equity analysis.

A Before-After Intervention Experiment and Survey and Covid-19 Add-on Survey

Sponsor: Pacific Southwest Region 9 University Transportation Center, US Department of Transportation, and UCSB Senate. In this project, we first develop a strong theoretical model accompanied by data collection to test some of its aspects for behavioral change research. Data collection shifted from the originally planned public transportation intervention to the examination of COVID-19 impacts on the life of Los Angeles Metropolitan area residents. In terms of substantive findings, we verified that in this region as in other parts of the US people experienced loss of jobs, forced relocations, and major changes in working and studying. In terms of the attitude-behavior relationship, we also confirmed the existence of more diversity in attitudinal groups of people with respect to their position towards the private automobile and found that these attitudes are strongly correlated with the use of different modes. The survey design and conceptual model form the foundation for subsequent data collection and analysis based on the pilot examples of this project. A third pilot study within this project is the design of a smartphone application. Guidelines for survey design are provided in this report with a description of an ongoing research effort at UCSB that continues beyond the project reported here.