Developing corridor choice model under hypothetical Variable Message Sign based traffic information

• Autor(a) principal: Basu,Debasis
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Maitra,Bhargab
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Journal of Transport Literature
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2238-10312015000200005
• topic: corridor/route choice; revealed preference Stated; preference; logit model; variable message sign

Abstract The article presents development of a closed-form corridor choice model under hypothetical variable message sign (VMS) based traffic information. A single VMS board is assumed to display traffic information at a junction of two alternative and competitive traffic corridors connecting two catchment areas in Kolkata city, India. The corridor choice models are developed by combining revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) data sources. The development of a combined RP-SP model is a challenging task as different data sources have their respective error terms. In this work, the data sources are combined by exploiting their respective merits; while discarding their respective de-merits. Here a procedure of developing composite utility function is presented, which is constituted of estimates of attributes from SP data source and alternative specific constant term of alternatives calibrated from RP data source, while fixing all coefficients of attributes at SP estimates. The construction of corridor choice models is demonstrated for two types of VMS based traffic information, which differs in terms of the content displayed on VMS board and also for two types of trip maker- namely private car and taxi. Under the influence of VMS-based traffic information, trip makers are found to take corridor choice decision based on the rational trade-off between travel time information and direct travel cost of alternative traffic corridors. The alternative-specific-constant term of choice models indicates that in presence of VMS-based information, private car trip makers are likely to be less biased to choose comparatively longer but almost free-flow traffic corridor (thereby less travel time corridor); while taxi trip makers are likely to be more biased to choose longer but almost free-flow traffic corridor to arrive at their destination.