Transportation mode choice behavior with recommender systems: A case study on Beijing

Understanding and predicting mode choice behavior in urban areas is an ongoing challenge, with several factors identified in past studies, e.g. built-environment, household statistics, trip properties, and many models being developed, e.g., regression and nested logit models. Existing research studi...

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Main Authors: Xiaoqian Sun, Sebastian Wandelt
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2021-09-01
Series:Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198221001147
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author Xiaoqian Sun
Sebastian Wandelt
author_facet Xiaoqian Sun
Sebastian Wandelt
author_sort Xiaoqian Sun
collection DOAJ
description Understanding and predicting mode choice behavior in urban areas is an ongoing challenge, with several factors identified in past studies, e.g. built-environment, household statistics, trip properties, and many models being developed, e.g., regression and nested logit models. Existing research studies are predominantly designed around stated preferences surveys on small subsets of a population. The massive use of smartphones and route recommendation systems, however, offers the possibility of interacting with users, opening the potential to better understand and influence mode choice behavior, compared to sole offline analysis.This study explores the ability to predict travelers’ mode choice behavior in Beijing based on a collection of 300,000 recommended transportation alternatives from Baidu. The unique context of Beijing, with its enormous congestion and excessive penetration of smart phones, provides a unique view on actual transportation mode choice at a large scale; and behavioral changes induced by mobile communication technologies. We use machine learning techniques to identify the effects of driving variables, including transportation mode accessibility, weather conditions, alternative trip costs, and time of day. We find robust evidence supporting the observation that users preferably select the first-ranked alternative provided by the route recommendation system. This observation should be exploited further by transportation policy-makers to guide users towards greener and environmental-friendly transport modes.
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spelling doaj.art-b4240f940c284af693e1137965991b832022-12-21T22:41:16ZengElsevierTransportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives2590-19822021-09-0111100408Transportation mode choice behavior with recommender systems: A case study on BeijingXiaoqian Sun0Sebastian Wandelt1School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, 100191 Beijing, China; National Engineering Laboratory for Integrated Transportation Big Data, 100191 Beijing, ChinaSchool of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, 100191 Beijing, China; Corresponding author.Understanding and predicting mode choice behavior in urban areas is an ongoing challenge, with several factors identified in past studies, e.g. built-environment, household statistics, trip properties, and many models being developed, e.g., regression and nested logit models. Existing research studies are predominantly designed around stated preferences surveys on small subsets of a population. The massive use of smartphones and route recommendation systems, however, offers the possibility of interacting with users, opening the potential to better understand and influence mode choice behavior, compared to sole offline analysis.This study explores the ability to predict travelers’ mode choice behavior in Beijing based on a collection of 300,000 recommended transportation alternatives from Baidu. The unique context of Beijing, with its enormous congestion and excessive penetration of smart phones, provides a unique view on actual transportation mode choice at a large scale; and behavioral changes induced by mobile communication technologies. We use machine learning techniques to identify the effects of driving variables, including transportation mode accessibility, weather conditions, alternative trip costs, and time of day. We find robust evidence supporting the observation that users preferably select the first-ranked alternative provided by the route recommendation system. This observation should be exploited further by transportation policy-makers to guide users towards greener and environmental-friendly transport modes.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198221001147Travel mode choice behaviorRecommendation systemsMachine learning
spellingShingle Xiaoqian Sun
Sebastian Wandelt
Transportation mode choice behavior with recommender systems: A case study on Beijing
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Travel mode choice behavior
Recommendation systems
Machine learning
title Transportation mode choice behavior with recommender systems: A case study on Beijing
title_full Transportation mode choice behavior with recommender systems: A case study on Beijing
title_fullStr Transportation mode choice behavior with recommender systems: A case study on Beijing
title_full_unstemmed Transportation mode choice behavior with recommender systems: A case study on Beijing
title_short Transportation mode choice behavior with recommender systems: A case study on Beijing
title_sort transportation mode choice behavior with recommender systems a case study on beijing
topic Travel mode choice behavior
Recommendation systems
Machine learning
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198221001147
work_keys_str_mv AT xiaoqiansun transportationmodechoicebehaviorwithrecommendersystemsacasestudyonbeijing
AT sebastianwandelt transportationmodechoicebehaviorwithrecommendersystemsacasestudyonbeijing