Stated Response Examination of Factors Influencing Commercial Movement Route Choice Behavior

A stated response experiment was performed to examine how people in Montreal in Canada are influenced by specific route attributes in the selection of routes for commercial movements. The route attributes considered included the expected driving time, the roadway type (arterial or freeway), the magnitude of a toll and the toll collection method (if any), and the probability and associated magnitude of a possible delay. A total of 242 complete interviews were conducted in two separate surveys, one with commercial drivers and the other with trucking company operators. With multiple observations of choice behaviour obtained in each interview, a total of 1885 observations of the relevant route choice behaviour were obtained. Analysis of these observations indicates that all the included attributes other than toll collection type have significant effects on route choice in the situation being considered. They also indicate, among other things, that the probability of delay has a very large impact, that the sensitivity to time in delay is greater than the sensitivity to expected driving time, and that the implied value of driving time is impacted dramatically by the nature of the treatment of expected delay. Some of these results are consistent with findings in related work done by others, which is seen to add credence to the approach being used here. Some of these results are novel, with implications for other future work.