Travel Mode Choice Modeling: Predictive Efficacy between Machine Learning Models and Discrete Choice Model

Background: A complex travel behaviour among users is intertwined with many factors. Traditionally, the exploration in travel mode choice modeling has been dominated by the Discrete Choice model, nonetheless, owing to the advancement in computational techniques, machine learning has gained traction in understanding travel behavior. Aim: This study aims at predicting users’ travel model choice by means of machine learning models against a conventional Discrete Choice Model, i.e., Binary Logistic Regression. Objective: To investigate the comparison between machine learning models, namely Neural Network, Random Forest, Decision Tree, and Support Vector Machine against the Discrete Choice Model (Binary Logistic Regression) in the prediction of travel mode choice amongst Kuantan City. Methodology: The dataset was collected in Kuantan City, Malaysia, through the Revealed/Stated Preferences (RP/SP) Survey. The data collected was split into a ratio of 80:20 for training and testing before evaluating them between the aforesaid models. The hyperparameters of the models were set to default. The performance of the models is evaluated based on classification accuracy. Results: It was shown in the present study that the Neural Network Model is able to attain a higher prediction accuracy as compared to Binary Logistic Regression (Discrete Choice Model) in classifying mode choice of Kuantan users either to choose public transport or private vehicles as daily transportation. Feature importance technique is crucial for identifying the significant features in modelling travel mode choice. It is demonstrated that the Neural Network Model can yield exceptional classification of mode choice up to 73.4% and 72.4% of training and testing data, respectively, by considering the features identified via the feature importance technique, suggesting the viability of the proposed technique in supporting an informed decision. Conclusion: The findings highlight the strengths and limitations of the Machine Learning Technique as well as the Discrete Choice Model in modeling travel mode choice. It was shown that Machine Learning models have the capability to provide better prediction that could assist the urban transportation planning among policymakers. Meanwhile, it could be also demonstrated that the Discrete Choice Model (Binary Logistic Regression) is helpful in getting a better understanding in expressing the inference relationship between variables for improvising the future transportation system.

Classification of Imbalanced Travel Mode Choice to Work Data Using Adjustable SVM Model

The investigation of travel mode choice is an essential task in transport planning and policymaking for predicting travel demands. Typically, mode choice datasets are imbalanced and learning from such datasets is challenging. This study deals with imbalanced mode choice data by developing an algorithm (SVMAK) based on a support vector machine model and the theory of adjusting kernel scaling. The kernel function’s choice was evaluated by applying the likelihood-ratio chi-square and weighting measures. The empirical assessment was performed on the 2017 National Household Travel Survey–California dataset. The performance of the SVMAK model was compared with several other models, including neural networks, XGBoost, Bayesian Network, standard support vector machine model, and some SVM-based models that were previously developed to handle the imbalanced datasets. The SVMAK model outperformed these models, and in some cases improved the accuracy of the minority class classification. For the majority class, the accuracy improvement was substantial. This algorithm can be applied to other tasks in the transport planning domain that deal with uneven data distribution.

Modeling and Predicting Commuters' Travel Mode Choice in Lahore, Pakistan

The travel mode preference exists in both culture and theenvironment. The wide scale of people's mobility makesour cities more polluted and congested, eventually affecting urban assets.Understanding people’s mode choice is important to develop urbantransportation planning policies effectively. This study aims to model andpredict the commuter’s mode choice behaviour in Lahore, Pakistan. A surveywas conducted, and the data was used for model validation. Thecomparative study was further done among multinomial logit model (MNL),Random Forest (RF), and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) classificationapproaches. It’s common in existing studies that vehicle ownership is rankedas the most important among all features impacting commuters’ travel modechoice. Since many commuters in Lahore own no vehicle, it’s unclear whatthe rank of factors impacting non-vehicle owners is. Other than thecomparison of predicting the performance of the methods, our contributionis to do more analysis of the rank of factors impacting the different types ofcommuters. It was observed that occupation is ranked as the most importantamong all features for non-vehicle owners.

Exploring Influencing Factors of Intercity Mode Choice from View of Entire Travel Chain

Exploring the influencing factors of intercity travel mode choice can reveal passengers’ travel decision mechanisms and help traffic departments to develop an effective demand management policy. To investigate these factors, a survey was conducted in Xi’an, China, to collect data about passengers’ travel chains, including airplane, high-speed railway (HSR), train, and express bus. A Bayesian mixed multinomial logit model is developed to identify significant factors and explicate unobserved heterogeneity across observations. The effect of significant factors on intercity travel mode choice is quantitatively assessed by the odds ratio (OR) technique. The results show that the Bayesian mixed multinomial logit model outperforms the traditional Bayesian multinomial logit model, indicating that accommodating the unobserved heterogeneity across observations can improve the model fit. The model estimation results show that ticket purchasing method, comfort, punctuality, and access time are random parameters that have heterogeneous effects on intercity travel mode choice.