Escort Patterns in Dual-Worker Households with Students

Abstract

Individuals have been regarded as independent decision makers in majority of transportation analysis. However, agents’ behaviors are usually affected by the interactions among the members in a group; and therefore, individual decision-making paradigms may result in unrealistic outcomes and erroneous interpretations of the results. In light of this, the present study develops discrete choice models in individual and group levels and compares their prediction power in predicting the choice of escort pattern in dual-worker households with at least one under-18-year-old student. The main purpose is to reveal the efficiency of each approach in analyzing parent-child joint activities and highlight the effect of model misspecification in predicting group decisions using a quantifiable measure. The results reveal that more than 25 percent of correct predictions in school trips will be missed when the conventional individual decision-making procedure, rather than a group decision-making paradigm, is adopted. Also, 20 percent of the observed reduction in the explanatory power of the model was associated with trips from school. The findings of this study underscore the significance of implementing group decision-making paradigms when the context requires.

Keywords

• group decision-making
• interactions
• escort patterns
• school trips