Center for Activity Systems Analysis

Accessibility can no longer be measured only in terms of travel time, distance or generalized travel cost. Information technology gives individuals "virtual accessibility" to a rapidly growing range of activities. Each person who shops at home on the Internet, or uses a handheld Internet device to gather information about the transportation system before embarking on a trip might only change his or her overall pattern of travel behavior just a little. But there are millions of people worldwide who will be doing similar things on any given day. The small effects scale up to be significant. Travel behavior researchers need to develop models of activity and travel behavior that are capable of capturing the present and future impacts of telecommunications on activity and travel behavior. This paper explores how we might do that.