Assessing planning decisions by activity type during the scheduling process

Existing activity-based models still make assumptions about scheduling decision processes that are not well-informed by empirical evidence. In this article, a step forward is taken to better understand the activity-scheduling process and to improve activity-based models. In particular, different planning decision mechanisms depending on several activity type classifications are explored. First, models describing the planning of several aggregate activity types are considered. For these activities, three planning decisions are studied: location, planning time horizon and rescheduling. The ‘with whom’ planning decision is also studied when subtypes of recreational/entertainment activities are investigated in depth. Significant differences are found in modelling results for each activity type and subtype and each planning decision. These results confirm the existence of different mechanisms underlying the activity-travel decision process when activity types and subtypes are considered. Important conclusions related to the improvement of microsimulation models are highlighted.