The Home as a Trip Attractor: An Exploratory Study of Residential Service Demand

Term Start:

June 1, 2025

Term End:

August 31, 2026

Budget:

$130,000

Keywords:

Delivery Trips, Household Service Demand, Travel Behavior Modeling

Thrust Area(s):

Data Collection Mechanisms, Understanding User Needs

University Lead:

City College of New York

Researcher(s):

Alison Conway

Taking a two-phase approach, this study aims to investigate the nature and scale of household-based service demands, and to establish a baseline for better data collection and modeling of this under-studied component of travel demand in future research efforts. Part 1 of this project will utilize data from the recently completed Transportation Heartbeat of America (THA) survey to develop frequency choice models for both household service trip demands and household delivery demands. These models will enable us to quantify household demands for service; to identify the demographic, household, and location-based characteristics that are drivers of these demands; and to compare the scale and characteristics of service demands vs. delivery demands.

In Part 2, we will identify a set of key household service industries, and conduct a comprehensive review of multi-disciplinary literature and of existing data sources for each. We will characterize the industry, investigating industry structural characteristics and typical workday travel characteristics, and evaluate the utility of existing data sources to inform future industry-specific travel demand modeling. Results will be published as a succinct guidebook on potential data sources for modeling household service demand. This deliverable is also expected to serve as the foundation for a second phase of research that will aim to develop advanced supply-side modeling approaches for estimating and characterizing service-related travel demand.

Project scope

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