Accounting for inertia in multimodal route choice behaviour

The case of a new metro line in Santiago

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Abstract

If people repeat choices in daily travel behaviour under stable conditions, over time this can form habitual travel behaviour and lead to inertia. If travellers face a new metro line, to what extent does their habitual travel behaviour affect their willingness to use this new transport alternative. This study investigate the inertia effects in a multimodal public transport network using a fully revealed preference data set. Habitual route choice behaviour is quantified prior to the opening of the new metro line. We then use the quantitative metric for habitual behaviour as an indicator in the situation after the metro line opens to reflect the inertia effects of individuals. The outcome of the route discrete choice model reveal that the inertia effects for the new metro line are significant. The interaction effect of habitual travellers with the new transport alternative show that there is an additional effect for the new alternative if travellers are classified as habitual. Furthermore, not accounting for inertia effects leads to bias in travel demand estimations of the new transport alternative. The model with the inertia effect improves model fit and is able to more accurately.