Social Context of Activity Scheduling

Activity-based approaches to travel demand modeling are increasingly moving from theoretical to operational models. Agent-based microsimulation models are a promising approach as they explicitly conceive travel as an emergent phenomenon from people's activity characteristics and, more explicitly, from their activity-scheduling processes. Activity-scheduling processes are influenced by individuals’ characteristics as well as by the people with whom they interact. Thus, the activity-scheduling process has an intrinsic social context. With social activities used as a case study, the objective of this paper is to investigate empirically the relationship between social context (measured by with whom respondents interacted) and two key aspects of activity scheduling: start time and duration. Econometric models of the combined decisions of with whom to participate and when to start or how much time to spend are estimated to investigate the correlations between “with whom” and start time and duration decisions. Data collected by a 7-day activity diary survey were used for model development. Findings suggest that social context has a relevant role in activity-scheduling processes. For example, with whom people socialize influences social activity-scheduling processes more than do travel time or distances to social travel. In addition to theoretical understanding of the questions investigated here, the models serve as an empirical support for agent-based microsimulation models that could incorporate the role of social networks in activity-scheduling attributes.