Spatial Transferability of Tour-Based Time-of-Day Choice Models

An empirical assessment of the transferability of tour-based time-of-day (TOD) choice models across different counties in the San Francisco Bay Area of California is presented. Transferability was assessed with two approaches: (a) an application-based approach that tests the transferability of a model as a whole and (b) an estimation-based approach that allows the analyst to test which specific parameters in the model are transferable. Also tested was the hypothesis that pooling data from multiple geographic contexts helps in developing models with better transferability than those estimated from a single context. The estimation-based approach yielded encouraging results in favor of transferability of the TOD choice model, with a majority of parameter estimates in a pooled model found to be transferable. Pooling data from multiple geographic contexts appears to help in developing better transferable models with better transferability. However, attention is needed in selecting the geographic contexts from which to pool data. The pooled data should exhibit the same demographic characteristics and travel level-of-service conditions as in the application context.