Chain mobility and mode choice. The last 30 years travel behaviour of individuals and households has changed due to a number of trends such as the larger number of women on the labour market, the increase of car ownership, and the time pressure imposed by our society. Trip chaining is part of this changing mobility pattern. Trip chains are defined here as trip combinations with one or more intermediate destinations between “home” as origin and destination. Chain mobility has an effect on travel time and travel cost, and therefore impacts mode choice. Travel time, walking time, waiting time and transit time are not evaluated by the traveller based on individual trips, but based on the entire chain. An acceptable waiting or walking time for an individual trip may not be acceptable when this trip is part of a chain, and thus affect the use of public transport. Usually, the “weakest” link in the chain, that is, the link with the least competitive public transport possibility, will determine the mode choice for the entire chain. In this paper we present the first results of the analysis of the influence of time on mode choice based on the Belgian MOBEL survey. Different aspects of time appear to have a different impact on mode choice, depending on the total travel time. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting