Modeling of Household Vehicle Type Choice Accommodating Spatial Dependence Effects

Household vehicle ownership and fleet composition are choice dimensions that have important implications for policy making, particularly in the arena of energy and environmental sustainability. In the context of household vehicle ownership and type choice, it is conceivable that substantial spatial interaction effects are caused by both observed and unobserved factors. A multinomial probit model formulation is presented: it incorporates spatial spillover effects arising from both observed and unobserved factors. The model is estimated on the California add-on data set of the 2009 National Household Travel Survey. Model estimation results show that spatial dependency effects are statistically significant. The findings have important implications for model development and application in policy forecasting.