Route choice behavior in transportation-An application of the multiattribute utility theorem

Route choice behavior in transportation is an important issue of travel demand analysis. By using pairwise comparison, the multiattribute utility theorem can be used to catch trip-makers’ travel behavior, to understand current transportation systems, to predict travel demand in the future, to provide a reference to strategic planning and to evaluate the results of improvement strategies. In this paper, route choice for bus patrons is selected to demonstrate both deterministic and stochastic disaggregate demand models, including the Keeney, the probit and the discriminant function methods. In addition, the principal steps to construct multiattribute utility functions are discussed along with their respective advantages and disadvantages.