Variability and Anchoring Points in Weekly Activity-Travel Patterns

Temporal rhythms in travel and activity patterns are analysed thanks to a seven-day travel diary collected on 707 individuals in the city of Ghent (Belgium) in 2008. The analysis confirms the large level of intrapersonal variability whether for daily trips, time use and activity sequences. However the analysis goes further by studying this variability along various time periods within the week. The systematic day-to-day variability is shown to have an extremely low share in intrapersonal variability. A striking result is that socio-demographic characteristics are mostly unable to explain the high level of intrapersonal variability. Repetitive activity-travel behaviour is then detected, through combinations of attributes of activity at destination, travel mode, trip arrival time and destination location. The picture is at the same time one of diversity and one of singularity within personal activity-travel patterns along the week. People tend to concentrate their weekly activity-travel patterns on a few anchoring points (i.e. “core stops”), despite a large dispersion. These results are somewhat encouraging for modelling behavioural adaptations to changes in the transport context.