Impact of Mobile Phones on Travel

Abstract

Mobile phones are indispensable and ubiquitous tools that afford unprecedented levels of connectivity and accessibility to millions of users. A study investigated the influence of mobile phones on three travel-related dimensions: unplanned activity chaining, unplanned rideshares arranged by using mobile phones, and shopping by phone. These dimensions were investigated by using data from 400 workers in the city of Chennai, India. The results reveal that mobile phones significantly affect not only these travel dimensions but also activity participation. The data also provide evidence that social connectivity, activity characteristics, mobile phone use, and travel patterns are all strongly interlinked. Individual characteristics, such as flexible time and duration of working hours, and personal and household characteristics, such as age, gender, and vehicle availability, were found to be influential. The impact of mobile phones on the dimensions of unplanned stop making, ridesharing, and shopping trip substitution can have important practical implications for mode choice modeling, vehicle occupancy increase measures, and congestion alleviation measures.

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