Problem Statement

The expansion of the service sector over the past two decades has led to a significant increase in travel demand driven by professional activities. Service-related trips, in particular, are strongly affected, as they arise from the need to provide services directly on-site – for example, in the case of visits by craftsmen or caregiving services. Travel demand models are used in transportation planning to capture this development and forecast the impact of planned measures. However, unlike well-established models for private passenger trips and freight transport, commercial trips are still insufficiently considered in these models. This research gap is primarily due to the limited availability of microscopic data on these trips. While traditional household surveys generally capture work-related trips, they are often underrepresented and insufficiently detailed in their purpose. Additionally, there is a lack of crucial background information about the businesses responsible for generating these trips. While macroscopic models fail to capture the complex trip chain patterns of service-related trips, microscopic approaches do not provide the required level of detail. As a result, these shortcomings lead to considerable limitations in the accuracy of quantitative forecasting capabilities.

Objective

The research aims to develop a causal model of commercial passenger trip demand. The project investigates how demand for services can be modeled and quantified and how the matching of demand and supply in the service sector can be represented. Building on this generated demand, the study will analyze how internal business processes – particularly the allocation of work orders to employees – are structured and can be modeled to simulate realistic behavioral patterns in commercial passenger trips. The model is expected to respond to fluctuations in demand and economic cycles, enabling a detailed analysis of the growing relevance of the service sector and its impacts on the transportation system. Another sub-goal is to jointly model commercial passenger trips with private travel demand, ensuring that interactions between private and commercial passenger trips are adequately considered.

Methods

The first step involves analyzing available data on commercial passenger trips to identify key indicators. Following this, a synthetic economic structure will be developed, and workplace choice modeling will be carried out, assigning agents (employees) to specific companies. This model will incorporate various characteristics, including industries, employee roles, and working hours. Based on the results of the workplace choice model, specific approaches for modeling commercial passenger travel demand will be developed. The initial focus will be on business trips resulting from meetings at other companies or across different locations within the same or partner organization. The next phase involves methods for modeling service trips. Service orders will first be generated and assigned to the corresponding companies. This requires accounting for both internal and external structural factors, such as the preferences of service providers and clients. Extensive surveys will be conducted among individuals and companies in this context. The implementation of the developed model will be demonstrated using the institute's open-source software mobiTopp.