Changes in Travel Behavior in Response to Weather Conditions

Abstract

Weather can influence travel demand, traffic flow, and traffic safety. A hypothesis—the type of weather determined the likelihood of a change in travel behavior, and changes in travel behavior because of weather conditions depended on trip purpose—was assayed. A stated adaptation study was conducted in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium). A survey, completed by 586 respondents, was administered both on the Internet and as a traditional paper-and-pencil questionnaire. To ensure optimal correspondence between the survey sample composition and the Flemish population, observations in the sample were weighted. To test the main hypotheses, Pearson chi-square independence tests were performed. Results from both the descriptive analysis and the independence tests confirm that the type of weather matters and that changes in travel behavior in response to these weather conditions are highly dependent on trip purpose. This dependence of behavioral adjustments on trip purpose provides policy makers with a deeper understanding of how weather conditions affect traffic. Further generalizations of the findings are possible by shifting the scope toward revealed travel behavior. Triangulation of both stated and revealed travel behavior on the one hand and traffic intensities on the other hand is a key challenge for further research.

Meteorological variation in daily travel behaviour: evidence from revealed preference data from the Netherlands

“…is evidenced by the significance of these variables in the models presented in this paper. These results 26 confirm earlier findings based on stated preference data, in which fog, precipitation and temperature 27 are reported to trigger behavioural changes (Cools et al, 2010b). Moreover, it should be underlined 28 that these different weather components are also reported to significantly affect traffic intensity (Cools 29 et al, 2010a).…”

“…In 10 contrast, the occurrence of fog earlier on the day was found to significantly increase the odds of 11 shopping and leisure trips and to decrease the odds of visits trips. This provides evidence that the 12 presence of fog induces travellers to postpone their non-mandatory such as shopping and leisure trips 13 until the fog disappeared, as also reported by Cools et al (2010b). The results pertaining to cloud 14 cover indicate that each octant increase in cloud cover corresponds to a 4.59% increase in the odds of 15 shopping trips and a 2.75% increase in the odds of other trips, whereas the odds of leisure and visit 16 trips are reduced by 2.51% and 1.53%, respectively.…”

Modelling the impact of weather conditions on active transportation travel behaviour

“…However, such surveys come with disadvantages such as inefficient design of hypothetical scenarios and small and a typical samples. Cools et al (2010) for instance recently conducted a stated preference survey of 350 people in Belgium in order to explore the affect of weather on travel behaviour, including mode choice. The small sample size inhibited the author to study the different modes individually; The general results, however, suggest that change in weather condition influences mode choice, especially across different trip purposes.…”

“…Some research is conducted at a very aggregate level and does not include detailed enough weather condition and trip specific characteristics (Dill and Carr 2003, Winters et al 2007, Parkin et al 2008, Berkim et al 2006. Others are very location specific, and while they contain very detailed weather data, they fail to capture the influence of socioeconomic characteristics of trip makers and characteristics of other alternative modes (Brandenburg et al n.a., Thomas et al 2009, Nankervis 1999, Cools et al 2010, Bergstrom and Magnusson 2003, Aultman-Hall et al 2009). There is also very little research done on the relationship between weather and the walk mode compared to the bicycle mode.…”

Residence and Job Location Change Choice Behavior under Flooding and Cyclone Impacts in Bangladesh

“…Until recently, travel behavior adaptation to climate change attracts attention from scholars addressing behavioral changes to adapt to the impacts of climate change, especially adverse weather events in people's daily travel [12][13][14][15]. It is important to understand people's travel behavior changes under climate change impacts because transportation network performance is largely dependent on how travellers respond to traffic conditions [16].…”