Exploring Route Choice Behavior Using Driving Simulator Data Under Dynamic Message Sign Guidance
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Date
2014
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Transportation
Program
Doctor of Engineering
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This item is made available by Morgan State University for personal, educational, and research purposes in accordance with Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Other uses may require permission from the copyright owner.
Abstract
Route choice problem is among the most complicated steps in transportation planning and travel demand analysis. Various individual-specific and environmental factors, as well as route information, play significant roles on route decision making process. While determining these factors through stated preference methods appears not to be sufficiently realistic and accurate, many of these factors can be derived through experimental simulator tests. Travelers' perceptions of travel time and distance (for the route taken) and their reactions to real-time traffic information can be measured for human subjects from diverse socio-demographics in a simulation based experiment under controlled traffic conditions. According to recent route choice literature, choices arose not only based on past experiences, but also based on the information that drivers receive en-route. In a data-oriented attempt, this study intends to link the travel time acquisition and drivers' compliance rate to their socio-economic and travel specific factors by using revealed preference data in a driving simulator environment. Driving simulators are novel research platforms for behavioral studies that supply realistic driving loads and therefore facilitate the investigations of latent factors in traveler route choice. Combined effect of information and users' attributes, perceptions, and experience are explored in this experimental research. Matching the real world, the simulator experiments consisted of three alternatives from a specific origin to a known destination on a 400 square kilometer network southwest of the Baltimore metro area with over 100 participants. The study utilized dynamic message sign (DMS) as the source of travel information delivery. The results illustrated that past exposure to DMS, travel time saving, reliability of DMS information, personal perceptions, and past experiences were important determinants of route choice behavior in the real-world. Also, in addition to travel time, inertia and anchoring effects can significantly influence driver route choice. The study also illustrates that the decisions revealed in the simulator experiments at the individual level can diverge significantly from those stated in the stated preference questionnaire, highlighting the need to go beyond stated intent to analyze the effectiveness of information-based guidance strategies.