Use of Private Probe Data in Route Choice Analysis to Explore Heterogeneity in Drivers' Familiarity with Origin–Destination Pairs

An exploratory analysis about the effect on route choice of heterogeneity in driver familiarity with origin–destination (O-D) pairs was carried out. This analysis was based on probe data collected by private vehicles in Toyota, Japan. The hypothesis test results showed that route choice behavior changed in relation to the level of familiarity with O-D pairs. Two specifications of choice models were proposed to consider the effect of familiarity. The estimation results showed that the models that considered familiarity fit the data better and suggested that trips between more familiar O-D pairs had larger error variances and less sensitivity to explanatory variables. The estimated models were applied to a specific choice situation, and the prediction results showed the potential biases introduced by not considering the heterogeneity in the familiarity with O-D pairs. In addition, when traveling between more familiar O-D pairs, drivers were less sensitive to the intersection count than to the free travel time.