Commuter Departure Time Choice: a Reference-point Approach

The departure time decisions of commuters are of fundamental importance to the study of peak-period traffic congestion and to the analysis of traffic control as well as broader demand-side congestion relief measures, such as pricing and ride sharing incentives [1]. Over the past decades, there have been very active research efforts in the departure time problem, both in econometric modeling and dynamic user equilibrium (DUE) fields [2-9]. Although these works provide valuable insights into dynamic commuter decision making, they do not identify the commuter’s asymmetric response to gains and losses related to his/her actual arrival time relative to reference points they may have.