Accessibility and non-work destination choice: A microscopic analysis of GPS travel data

The advancements of GPS and GIS technologies provide new opportunities for investigating vehicle trip generation and destination choice at the microscopic level. This research models how land use and road network structure influence non-work, non-home vehicle trip generation and non-work destination choice in the context of trip chains, using the in-vehicle GPS travel data in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area. This research includes three key parts: modeling non-work vehicle trip generation, modeling non-work, single-destination choice, and modeling non-work, two-destination choice. This research contributes to methodologies in modeling single-destination choice and multiple-destination choice and tests several hypotheses which were not investigated before. In modeling non-work vehicle trip generation, this research identifies correlation of trips made by the same individual in the trip generation models. To control for this effect, five mixed-effects models are systematically applied: mixed-effects linear model, mixed-effects log-linear model, mixed-effects negative binomial model, and mixed-effects ordered logistic model. The mixed-effects ordered logistic model produces the highest goodness of fit for our data and therefore is recommended. In modeling non-work, single-destination choice, this research proposes a new method to build choice sets which combines survival analysis and random sampling. A systematic comparison of the goodness of fit of models with various choice set sizes is also performed to determine an appropriate choice set size. In modeling non-work, multiple-destination choice, this research proposes and compare three new approaches to build choice sets for two-destination choice in the context of trip chains. The outcomes of these approaches are empirically compared and we recommend the major/minor-destination approach for modeling two-destination choice. The modeling procedure can be expanded to trip chains with more than two destinations. Our empirical findings reveal that: 1. Although accessibility around home is not found to have statistically significant effects on non-work vehicle trips, the diversity of services within 10 to 15 minutes and i 15 and 20 minutes from home can help reduce the number of non-work vehicle trips. 2. Accessibility and diversity of services at destinations influence destination choice but they do not exert the same level of impact. The major destination in a trip chain tends to influence the decision more than the minor destination. 3. The more dissimilar the two destinations in a trip chain are, the more attractive the trip chain is. 4. Route-specific network measures such as turn index, speed discontinuity, axis of travel, and trip chains’ travel time saving ratio display statistically significant effects on destination choice. Our findings have implications on transportation planning for creating flourishing retail clusters and reducing the amount of vehicle travel.