Micro-simulation of daily activity-travel patterns for travel demand forecasting

The development and initial validation results of a micro-simulator for the generation of daily activity-travel patterns are presented in this paper. The simulator assumes a sequential history and time-of-day dependent struct ure. Its components are developed based on a decomposition of a daily activ ity-travel pattern into components to which certain aspects of observed act ivity-travel behavior correspond, thus establishing a link between mathemat ical models and observational data. Each of the model components is relativ ely simple and is estimated using commonly adopted estimation methods and e xisting data sets. A computer code has been developed and daily travel patt erns have been generated by Monte Carlo simulation. Study results show that individuals' daily travel patterns can be synthesized in a practical manne r by micro-simulation. Results of validation analyses suggest that properly representing rigidities in daily schedules is important in simulating dail y travel patterns.