“Discretionary Activity Location Choice: In Home or Out of Home?” in press

Akar, Gulsah; Clifton, Kelly and Doherty, Sean, forthcoming in Transportation
Abstract
This paper examines the location choice associated with discretionary activities (in-home versus out-of-home). These substitution patterns are important in terms of travel demand as in-home activities do not necessitate travel while out-of-home activities incur travel. Mixed logit models are
estimated using an activity dataset (2003 CHASE data) to analyze the factors associated with this choice at the individual activity-level. Results suggest that the attributes of an activity significantly contribute to understanding the likelihood of engaging in out-of-home activities. Activity type interaction terms reveal the varying influence that socio-demographics, activity attributes and travel have over four different activity types modeled. The results reveal that the location choice (in-home versus out-of-home) is sensitive to travel characteristics. As the travel time and cost increases, an individual is less likely to engage in an activity out-of-home. Compared to passive and social activities, the location of active activities is more sensitive to changes in travel attributes.