MoveSmarter, The Netherlands
This experiment is based on the use of the app “MoveSmarter” developed in the frame of a national experimentation on travel habits. The goal was to understand the personal variation, in a longitudinal perspective, in modal choice of transportation method to reach specific sets of activities. The analysis was made possible by the participation of volunteers that used the app as a travel diary.
We found relatively much intrapersonal variation for short trips (<2 km) as respondents who usually travel by car also regularly walk and/or cycle. By contrast, intrapersonal variation was significantly smaller in trips longer than 10 km, suggesting that people choose the same mode when they repeat long journeys. The intrapersonal variation is also relatively small for commute trips, implying a high level of habituation. In addition, the results from the mixed logit mode choice models clearly show that including a classification of travellers determined by the degree of intrapersonal variation significantly explains mode choice.
Challenges encountered:
Registering the mode of transportation of citizens is not straightforward. Many different methods and approaches exist, each with specific advantages and disadvantages.
Lessons learned:
A collaboration between the public administration, a research institution and a private company lead to fruitful results as each party has specific expertise that was valuable for the question at hand.