Multi-modal trips are common in today's multi-modal trip making and are expected to become more important in the future. An individual, embarking upon a multi-modal trip, face a number of different choice dimensions, such as access and egress mode(s), boarding and alighting railway stations, train service types, transfer stations. For each of these choice dimensions multiple alternatives are available. To gain insight in the structure and complexity of multi-modal trips, data from dedicated surveys are analysed. These include chosen trips and reported trip alternatives of 511 multi-modal home-bound trips in which train is the main transport mode. Objective choice sets are generated for these respondents and compared to the chosen trips and the reported trip alternatives. It can be concluded that many alternatives are available to travellers whereas only a limited subset of those alternatives is actually perceived. Even less alternatives are actually considered in the choice process. The obtained knowledge of the chosen trips and subjective choice sets can be used to improve choice set generation algorithms. (Author/publisher)
Abstract