Over- and Under-Estimation of Travel Time on Commute Trips: GPS vs. Self-Reporting

Abstract

The underlying structure of road networks (e.g., circuity, relative discontinuity) contributes to the travel time perception of travelers. This study considers additional factors (e.g., arrival flexibility, access to traffic information) and tests nonlinearities linking perception of travel time. These factors are linked to four categories according to time perception research in psychology: temporal relevance, temporal uncertainty, and temporal expectancies; task complexity, absorption, and attentional deployment; and affective elements. This study estimates the relationship on data collected from commuters recruited from a previous GPS-based study in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region consisting of trips from home to work and back. For these work trips, the subjects' self-reported travel times and the subjects' travel times measured by GPS devices were collected. The results indicate that nonlinearities are present for road network attributes. Furthermore, the additional factors (e.g., arrival flexibility, access to traffic information) influence the travel time perception of travelers.

Crowding and Perceived Travel Time in Public Transit: Virtual Reality Compared With Stated Choice Surveys

“…Discrepancy between the objective travel time and subjectively reported travel duration has been observed in a few previous studies in the transportation literature (21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27). Several previous works have proposed using perceived travel time instead of the objective travel time to improve choice modeling in transportation (45)(46)(47).…”

“…In real-world settings, several previous studies have investigated the mismatch between the objective travel time and subjectively reported travel duration (21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27). However, obtaining both the objective and subjective travel time in real-world commuting trips has certain methodological complications.…”

“…Therefore, in this context, it is challenging to distinguish different sources of distortions in time perception or pleasantness of the trip. A recent study by Carrion and Levinson examined several factors that contribute to error in travel time perception of daily work trips ( 21 ). They reanalyzed a dataset that included GPS-based actual travel times, as well as survey-based estimates of participants’ usual travel durations.…”

Towards a general theory of access

“…Travel is generally assumed to be a 'derived demand' , an undesirable process people endure to reach something they desire. e perception of travel cost systematically deviates from objective measures (Carrion and Levinson 2019;Fan et al 2016;Lagune-Reutler et al 2016;Parthasarathi et al 2013;Wu et al 2009). We talk about perceived and experienced cost, because even if a traveler has correct time perceptions, they may still favor one travel experience over another.…”

Shortest paths, travel costs, and traffic

“…It is now also widely understood that many other interrelated factors influence individuals’ route choice. Expectations of travel time are based on inaccurate perceptions and faulty memories (Carrion and Levinson, 2019; Di et al., 2017; Meng et al., 2018; Parthasarathi et al., 2013; Peer et al., 2014). People consider known variability as well as mean travel times (Amirgholy and Gonzales, 2017; Levinson and Zhu, 2013; Liu et al., 2004; Vacca et al., 2019).…”