TY - JOUR
T1 - Rewarding rush-hour avoidance
T2 - A study of commuters' travel behavior
AU - Ben-Elia, Eran
AU - Ettema, Dick
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was undertaken as part of the Spitsmijden project, which was funded by Transumo (Transition to Sustainable Mobility), the Ministry of Transport in the Netherlands, Bereik, RDW, NS, Rabobank, ARS T&TT, OC Mobility Coaching, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, TU Delft, Universiteit Utrecht. The modeling framework was discussed at the 5th Discrete Choice Modeling Workshop organized at EPFL (Lausanne, Swizterland) in August, 2009. Initial results of this research were also presented at the European Transport Conference (2009) and the 89th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (2010). The first author warmly thanks the Dept. of Human Geography and Planning at Utrecht University for hosting him as a postdoctoral researcher.
PY - 2011/1/1
Y1 - 2011/1/1
N2 - Spitsmijden, peak avoidance in Dutch, is the largest systematic effort to date to study, in the field, the potential of rewards as a policy mean for changing commuter behavior. A 13. week field study was organized in The Netherlands with the purpose of longitudinally investigating the impacts of rewards on commuter behavior. Different levels and types of rewards were applied and behavior was tracked with state-of-the art detection equipment. Based on the collected data, which included also pre and post-test measurements, a mixed discrete choice model was estimated. The results suggest that rewards can be effective tools in changing commuting behavior. Specifically rewards reduce the shares of rush-hour driving, shift driving to off-peak times and increase the shares of public transport, cycling and working from home. Mediating factors include socio-demographic characteristics, scheduling constraints and work time flexibility, habitual behavior, attitudes to commuting alternatives, the availability of travel information and even the weather. The success of this study has encouraged adoption of rewards, as additional policy tools, to alleviate congestion, especially during temporary road closures.
AB - Spitsmijden, peak avoidance in Dutch, is the largest systematic effort to date to study, in the field, the potential of rewards as a policy mean for changing commuter behavior. A 13. week field study was organized in The Netherlands with the purpose of longitudinally investigating the impacts of rewards on commuter behavior. Different levels and types of rewards were applied and behavior was tracked with state-of-the art detection equipment. Based on the collected data, which included also pre and post-test measurements, a mixed discrete choice model was estimated. The results suggest that rewards can be effective tools in changing commuting behavior. Specifically rewards reduce the shares of rush-hour driving, shift driving to off-peak times and increase the shares of public transport, cycling and working from home. Mediating factors include socio-demographic characteristics, scheduling constraints and work time flexibility, habitual behavior, attitudes to commuting alternatives, the availability of travel information and even the weather. The success of this study has encouraged adoption of rewards, as additional policy tools, to alleviate congestion, especially during temporary road closures.
KW - Behavior change
KW - Congestion
KW - Revealed preference
KW - Rewards
KW - Road pricing
KW - Travel information
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79957680041&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.tra.2011.03.003
DO - 10.1016/j.tra.2011.03.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79957680041
SN - 0965-8564
VL - 45
SP - 567
EP - 582
JO - Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
JF - Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
IS - 7
ER -
