The work patterns of individuals or households continue to provide a major determinant in daily mobility, even if a number of recent contributions indicate that it is not, or no longer, the only critical one. The purpose of this study is to focus on the patterns structure, and to consider the construction of the household work pattern as a piece of the household activity scheduling. However, if one restricts the scope to daily patterns scheduling, then the number of useful distinctions shrinks considerably and often boils down to the distinction between full-time and part-time work, with possible consideration for industrial work shifts, or questions about who is responsible for the organization of the working hours (MOBEL). However, analysis of the existing data on work pattern structure indicates that there is considerable variation from day to day, and that variations across individuals are also correlated to variations over the days. It is considered that the global view of work trips, tours or chains can hardly be realistically apprehended if one limits oneself to the daily and individual view. An attempt to extend the analysis of the household work patterns to a weekly horizon, rather than the most common daily one, is presented. This weekly pattern is considerably more adapted to the description of the observed variability, although even longer cycles such as those depending on seasons or annual holidays could be considered. To cover the Belgian national territory and to capture the behavioural differences existing across the three Regions (Brussels, Walloon Region, Flemish Region), three sources of data were used. The three surveys, called MOBEL, ERMM and OVG, wereall conceived as travel diary and held between 1999 and 2003. MOBEL and ERMM databases store information on a daily basis, while the OVG survey contains trips data over two days of the same weeks. It is acknowledged that this way to proceed cannot account for differences among working participation programs across the week. A project to collect travel diary over a week is currently under evaluation in Belgium. A model is proposed, based ona utility maximizing principle and assumes a weekly cycle for a householdworking participation program. The week is divided into seven days time periods. The household can be based on one adult or two adults. Two decision-making processes are applied. For each time period the one adult household can either decides to go to work or not to go to work; in the first case he/she can work part time or full time. The process is more complex for two-adult households; the alternatives are constructed as follow: both components not working; one of them working, the other not working, both working. When working participation is observed then the option of full time and part time involvement is presented. A nested logit structure, is adopted to model this decision process. The variables included are: age divided by categories 18-39/40-59/+60, gender, education (no diploma, elementary, secondary, higher degrees), driving licence, and household type (single with or without children, couple with or without children). The parallel construction of a synthetic population for Belgium is described on this basis. The model calibrated is then applied to the Belgian synthetic populationand the activity participation shares will be compared to those reported in the surveys. A geographic performance is also envisaged; in fact accuracy of the model will be calculated both on regional and national scale. For the covering abstract see ITRD E137145.
Abstract