Discretionary activity location choice: in‐home or out‐of‐home?

This paper examines the location choice associated with discretionary activities (in‐home vs. 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 vs. 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.