Study On Travel Mode And Path Choice Behavior Based On Prospect Theory

Travel choice behavior is one of hotspots in the fie ld of traffic science, most ofthe present studies are carried out in certain environment and the travelers areassumed to be perfectly rational. However, the fact is that travelers are faced up withuncertain travel environment and they are not completely rational, on the contrarythey may be avoiding from risk or be inc lined to risk according to the characteristicsof the alternatives. Therefore, considering the heterogeneity of travelers’ riskpreferences, is of great theoretical and realistic significance to analyze the mode andpath choice behaviors using the prospect theory.Firstly, multi-stage decision-making process of trip choices, the types ofdecisions and the influence factors are analyzed. Trip choice behavior processbefore, during and after a trip is analyzed. Travelers’ personal subjective factorssuch as cognition, motivation, preference, ability, learning and feedback are foundout to be influenced by various objective factors and they make trip choice decisionsby combining subjective and objective factors. Thus, on this basis, characteristics ofrisk preference and the risk characteristics during trip choice behaviors of travelerswith different social and economic attributes are specifically studied.Secondly, travel time and the cost are confirmed to be the two main risk factorsthat travelers care about through principal component analys is. Regression analys isis done to gain the reference point of the travel time and travel costs, significantinfluencing factor of the reference points as the basis of the classification fortravelers are found out and verified. Trip mode choices and route choices areconsidered synthetically, then the relation between the risk preference coefficientsand the reference points of different kinds of travelers while choosing differentmodes of travel are analyzed, thus a model of reference points based on expectedgeneralized travel cost is established. The update process of travelers’ perceptiontime before and after the trip is described by Bayesian updating model, a model ofgeneralized travel cost perception is built, the value function and decision weightingfunction are edited, and finally, joint trip choice model based on prospect theory isestablished.Analysis based on the actual road network and surve y of the mode and pathchoice behaviors are conducted; differences in mode and path choice behaviors ofdifferent types of travelers and the influences of varied risk preference coefficientson the result of the choices are analyzed using the joint trip choice model based onthe prospect theory and expected utility theory. Examples analyses shows that the joint trip choice model based on prospect theory can describe the mode and pathchoice behaviors of different types of travelers in the process of actual trip betterthan the model based on expected utility theory.