Travel Behavior

Travelers have choices to make when it comes to taking trips. For starters, they decide whether to travel or work and shop from home, what mode to take, which destination to visit, the route they’d like to follow, and when they’ll leave for their activities. Using a variety of data sources to understand today’s travel behavior and the ability to forecast these choices in the future under “what if” scenarios can help your agency make informed decisions about the value of different transportation investments.

Decades ago, we pioneered the use of individual travel behavior as a means to understand travel at different levels of geography.  We have extensive experience designing surveys and collecting data to create discrete choice models and activity-based models for analyzing travel behavior. Our experts take an integrated approach to data collection and analysis to ensure that we create policy sensitive tools for modeling and planning purposes. This work often requires combining data from a wide range of sources such as surveys, traffic counts and ridership data, global positioning systems and anonymized cellphones to ensure that the integrated data tell a complete story of travel behavior in your community.

Using these data and analytical tools, our modeling experts can help your agency:

• Establish a comprehensive baseline understanding of the major travel patterns in the region;

• Gain insights into the travel behavior of those driving, riding transit or using active modes of transportation;

• Assess travel by geography, socioeconomic market segments and time of day for a more nuanced approach to travel patterns; and

• Develop sophisticated and user-friendly transportation planning tools and visualizations.