Traveller's Behaviour Under Uncertain Conditions

Abstract

Travel behaviour depends on the travellers' perception of the trip characteristics. The uncertainty of the journey time is one of the determinants of the choice. Studies of decision behaviour in uncertain conditions show the limited validity of the common assumptions in traffic models. Decision making under uncertainty has to be considered as a contingent process, depending on the objectives and conditions with which the choice is made. Expected utility is one of the many possible criteria used by people to decide. There is a discrepancy between the objective and subjective value of this concept. This is due to the bias with respect to the perception of very likely and very unlikely events. In many cases the expected utility is a less applicable objective, e.g. because people want to arrive before a certain deadline and maximize the probability to achieve that. The fact that probabilities of travel times have to be learned from experiences introduces a dynamic character of choice behaviour.

Most of the reported properties of decision-making under uncertainty still have to be verified for travel behaviour.

Citation

van Zuylen, H.J. and Kikuchi, S. (2003), "Traveller's Behaviour Under Uncertain Conditions", Bell, M.G.H. and Iida, Y. (Ed.) The Network Reliability of Transport, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 155-170. https://doi.org/10.1108/9781786359544-009