Deviation between Actual and Shortest Travel Time Paths for Commuters
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 144, Issue 8
Abstract
This study evaluates routes followed by residents of the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area, as measured by the Global Positioning System (GPS) component of the 2010/11 Twin Cities Travel Behavior Inventory (TBI). It finds that most commuters used paths longer than the shortest path. This is in part a function of trip distance (+, longer distance trips deviate more), trip circuity (−, more circuitous trips deviate less), number of turns (+, trips with more turns per kilometer deviate more), age of driver (−, older drivers deviate less), employment status (+, part-time workers deviate more), flexibility in work hours (+, more flexibility deviate more), and household income (−, higher-income travelers deviate less). Some reasons for these findings are conjectured.
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Data Availabilty Statement
The raw data used for the research are accessible through the Transportation Secure Data Center (TSDC) of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (https://www.nrel.gov/transportation/secure-transportation-data/). Details about TomTom data can be found at www.tomtom.com/licensing.
Acknowledgments
The Federal Highway Administration of the US Department of Transportation is acknowledged for funding the work presented here under a grant to the Resource Systems Group (RSG). All analysis and errors are the responsibility of the authors. A technical report representing an earlier version of this work was published as Chap. 4 of RSG (2015) Multiday GPS Travel Behavior Data for Travel Analysis (FHWA-HEP-015-026). This research is also supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51178110, 51378119, and 51608115) and by the Top-notch Academic Programs Project of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PPZY2015A063).
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©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 22, 2017
Accepted: Feb 6, 2018
Published online: Jun 12, 2018
Published in print: Aug 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Nov 12, 2018
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