Participation in online activities while travelling: an application of the MDCEV model in the context of rail travel

Chiara Calastri (), Jacek Pawlak and Richard Batley
Additional contact information
Chiara Calastri: University of Leeds
Jacek Pawlak: Imperial College London
Richard Batley: University of Leeds

Transportation, 2022, vol. 49, issue 1, No 3, 87 pages

Abstract: Abstract Travel-based multitasking, i.e. using travel time to conduct enjoyable and/or productive activities, is the subject of an increasing number of theoretical and empirical studies. Most existing studies focus on modelling the choice of which activities people conduct while travelling, and a limited number of papers also focuses on their duration. The novelty of this study with respect to this literature is two-fold. Firstly, we specifically study the engagement in different online activities while travelling, and apply the state-of-the-art Multiple Discrete-Continuous Extreme Value (MDCEV) model to jointly model the choice and duration of multiple activities. We apply this model to data collected face-to-face from train passengers in the UK. We find that activity choice and duration is explained by both passenger and trip characteristics, especially trip purpose, ticket type and day/time of the trip. Secondly, we show how such modelling can assist in investment appraisal, in particular by providing insights into lower- and upper- bound estimates of the proportion of the entire travel time spent working, itself of importance in, for example, valuation of business travel time using the so-called Hensher Equation. We present a detailed discussion of how the findings from our work contribute to the broader discourse around the nature of travel time and its valuation.

Keywords: Travel time; Travel-based multitasking; Time use; MDCEV; ICT; Value of travel time; Productivity; Online work (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11116-021-10166-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:transp:v:49:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11116-021-10166-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11116/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11116-021-10166-8

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation is currently edited by Kay W. Axhausen

More articles in Transportation from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().