Milimol Philip, Prof. Sreelatha T, Dr. Soosan George
Mode choice behavior is a fundamental element of travel behaviour. It is the demand for activities that produces the demand for travel. In other words the need or desire to engage in an activity at a different location generates a trip. Primary objective of this paper is to study the importance of activity based approaches in travel demand models. An attempt is also made to develop a mode choice model for the rural middle class residents by activity based approach. The study area selected was a village in Ernakulam district of Kerala, India. The data collection was done by using the questionnaire form prepared, by interviewing every member of a household, giving emphasis for the previous day’s travel pattern. Preliminary analysis was done using excel to study the socio economic characteristics of the study area. Trip characteristics were analyzed using SPSS. Four wheeler and three wheeler ownerships, license ownership, walking time, waiting time, cost and duration of total trip were found to be the influencing variables. These variables were used for the model preparation which was a trial and error process. Model development and its validation were also done by using SPSS. Mode choice model was developed by applying the multinomial logit model based on maximum utilization theory.