Conceptual and methodological approaches to representing, understanding, analysing and modelling travel behaviour

个人行为的概念化，测量和建模是社会科学研究和实践中许多挑战的核心，并被确定为ESRC 2009-14年战略计划投资的优先领域。在运输方面，对个人行为的分析和建模是政策制定和投资评估的核心，这意味着这一领域的研究有可能对政策结果产生直接影响。在过去50年中，我们对旅行行为以及与旅行相关并由旅行促进的众多社会实践的看法发生了根本性变化，从对孤立的旅行和流量进行精算，演变为将旅行理解为活动规划和参与的复杂模式的一部分，具有多个目标，并在不同的时间范围内进行。这些变化反过来又对实际运输模型和需求分析的方式产生了重要影响。随着我们对旅行行为的概念化发生了变化，对测量和建模提出了新的挑战，同样，随着社会科学和其他领域内新的概念性测量和建模能力的发展，它们使得对旅行行为更丰富的理论和概念理解的操作化成为可能。然而，迄今为止，这些互动都是断断续续的，分散的，并利用了范围相对有限的社会科学投入。这项研究扫描工作的目的是汇集社会科学和交通研究人员，以更全面的方式考虑这些挑战，评估目前可用的一系列概念和方法，预测该领域未来可能的发展方向，从而积极促进社会科学与关键应用领域工作者之间的创造性互动，运输这项工作将通过一系列会议和讲习班进行，将来自运输和社会科学的主要专家聚集在一起，并通过委托编写的审查文件进行，并与一系列传播和后续活动相联系。

The conceptualisation, measurement and modelling of individual behaviour is at the heart of many challenges in social science research and practice, and is identified as a priority area for ESRC investment in its Strategic Plan for 2009-14. In transport, the analysis and modelling of individual behaviour is central to policy development and investment appraisal, which means that research in this area has scope for direct influence on policy outcomes. The way we think about travel behaviour and the multitude of social practices associated with and facilitated by travel has changed fundamentally over the past 50 years, evolving from an actuarial accounting of isolated trips and flows to an understanding of travel as part of the complex pattern of activity planning and participation, undertaken with multiple objectives and played out over a range of different times scales. These changes have in turn importantly influenced the way that practical transport modelling and demand analysis has been undertaken. As our conceptualisation of travel behaviour has changed, so new challenges for measurement and modelling have been presented, and likewise, as new conceptual;, measurement and modelling capabilities have been developed within the social sciences and elsewhere, they have made possible the operationalisation of richer theoretical and conceptual understandings of travel behaviour. To date, however, these interactions have been episodic and fragmented and have drawn on a relatively limited range of social science inputs. The objective of this research scanning exercise is to bring together communities of social science and transport researchers to consider these challenges in a more holistic manner, to take stock of the current array of conceptual and methodological approaches available, anticipate likely future directions of development for the field and thereby to actively stimulate creative interaction between the social sciences and those working in key application areas such as transport. The exercise will proceed through a series of meetings and workshops, bringing together leading experts from transport and the social sciences, and through commissioned review papers and linked to a range of dissemination and follow up activities.