TOWARD THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEASURES OF CONVENIENCE FOR TRAVEL MODES

This paper describes a research project aimed at investigating the effect on disaggregate, behavioral, modal-choice models of the inclusion of 2 alternative measures of convenience. The 2 measures investigated compare a proxy variable for convenience, which could be included in many existing models without further data collection, and a scale index that was developed from the use of psychological scaling techniques, which will require longer term development and additional data collection. Both measures correlated highly with travel mode choices, although data limitations prevented any actual model building with the scale index. The proxy variable for convenience was found to add significantly to the explanatory power of a modal-choice model and to improve substantially the specification of the model. This paper describes the data sets used to generate these results and discusses the analytical processes used to derive scale information from preference and attitude data. A survey of previous work in the topic area which is also included, shows this paper reports on one of the first successful attempts to incorporate a measure of convenience in an urban modal-choice model.