Modeling Time Allocation to Leisure and Travel

This multidisciplinary study has investigated the impacts of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), as computers, telephones, or televisions, on leisure activities and leisure-related travel, developing and empirically validating the Time Allocation to Leisure and Travel (TALT) Model for analysis of personal time-budget, and for exploration of tradeoffs between personal-activity demands. Based on the time allocation concept, the personal utility maximization concept and travel behavior theory, the model investigates the relationships between non-leisure activities and leisure activities, whether or not ICT-based, as well as leisure-related travel. Despite expectations in prior research for reduction in travel as a result of ICT use for leisure activities, this study shows the impact of ICT on leisure travel to be merely negligible.