Smartphones and Urban Transportation Mode Choice

Abstract

The arrival of smartphones has profoundly impacted how commuters make travel decisions. Using travel diary data, we estimate a discrete choice model that identifi es a signi ficant complementarity between smartphones and commuting via public transit. We address potential correlation in unobservables for smartphone ownership and mode choice by making use of excludable variables: mode-specifi c prices, travel times, and the release of the iPhone 4s (the first iPhone featuring Siri). We fi nd that 18% of transit commutes as well as 4.5% of smartphone ownership in the sample can be attributed to this complementarity.