Stability and Flexibility in Commuting Behavior: Analyses of Mode Choice Patterns in Germany

Daily travel behavior varies within one week: Individuals perform different activities and may use different modes. Considering the working population in Germany, 39% of their trips are work-related. Since these trips cover large parts of daily travel behavior, decisions on commuting mode choice and variation influence the transportation system in general; they are relevant to assess infrastructure needs and design mobility management concepts. Based on the German Mobility Panel, a one week national household travel survey, the authors analyzed whether and how commuting mode choice patterns vary on the individual level and which factors influence this variation. Since the occurrence of additional activities on the way from home to work and back may influence individual mode choice, they did not consider working trips only but the whole commuting tour. To consider various factors of stability and flexibility in commuting behavior, they used a multinomial logistic regression model. Their analyses show that 58% of the commuters integrate additional activities at least once a week and 27% use several different modes for commuting within the week. Their logistic regression results indicate that commuting mode choice and mode variation is determined by several factors like socio-demographics, commuting tour characteristics, the availability of cars and transit passes and transportation system based factors (e.g. parking pressure). The authors' results may help employers to reflect flexibility of the employees by providing an infrastructure that enables multimodal behavior. Influencing factors for commuting mode choice may be a valuable help to forecast and steer demands, e.g. by promoting transit passes for employees.