Progress in practical applications of large, passively collected data sets is often hindered by the lack of appropriate analytical tools or the proprietary nature of applicable software. One of the most widely used data sources in the United States is truck GPS data that are commercially available from a few sources nationwide. Although many large GPS data sets are used in the development of tour-based truck models, the development of a fairly general approach to data analysis and processing that can be readily applied to various GPS data sets without need of proprietary software is still of interest. First, this paper presents a set of tools and techniques used to transform low-frequency truck GPS data available from commercial sources into complete trajectories on the network, that is, sequences of links constituting continuous paths traversed by each truck, with corresponding time stamps on each of the nodes. For this exercise, only open-source software was used, and the algorithm implementation was released as an open-source tool under a business-friendly license. Second, use of the truck GPS data was expanded beyond the standard extraction of trip matrices and estimation of tour models. Additional applications include select link analysis, time-of-day analysis, and trajectory data visualization.
Understanding people's travel behavior is necessary for achieving goals such as increased bicycling and walking, decreased traffic congestion, and adoption of clean-fuel vehicles. To understand underlying motivations, researchers increasingly are adding subjective variables to models of travel behavior. This article presents a systematic review of 158 such studies. Nearly every reviewed article finds subjective variables to be predictive of transport outcomes. However, the 158 reviewed studies include 2864 distinct subjective survey questions. This heterogeneity makes it difficult to reach definitive conclusions about which subjective variables are most important for which transport outcomes. In addition to heterogeneity, challenges of this literature also include an unclear direction of causality and tautological relationships between some subjective variables and behavior. Within the constraints imposed by these challenges, we attempt to evaluate the explanatory power of subjective variables, which subjective variables matter most for which transport choices, and whether the answers to these questions vary between continents. To reduce heterogeneity in future studies, we introduce the Standardized Transport Attitude Measurement Protocol, which identifies a curated set of subjective questions. We have also developed an open-access database of the reviewed studies, including all subjective survey questions and models, with an interactive, searchable interface.
Keywords Attitudes • Perceptions • Travel choice • Travel behavior • Factor analysisNathan Harness and Alexis Consalvo have contributed equally.
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