Citation

Peters JI, Gordon DA, Townsend JC. Transp. Res. Rec. 1976; 600: 28-29.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1976, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The hypotheses that drivers' route choice perferences are significantly influenced by their expectancy of the situation and by their intention or trip purpose remain unsubstantiated. In like manner, no significance was obtained for route choice differences between either actual or instilled business trip purposes and vacation trip purposes. In determining the relationship between the subject's route preference in the experimental situation versus the actual route choice situation, a person's experimental route preference in the mobile lab appeared to be very highly related to a person's route choice in the actual, real-world situation. The hypothesis that driver intention in the experimental setting will significantly influence reaction time was not verified. No significance was noted when subjects were told to imagine that they were on a business or a vacation trip. Those actually on a business trip, however, tend to react significantly faster than those on a vacation trip. The obvious conclusion then is that, with respect to the measure of reaction time, trip purpose cannot be simulated in the lab. The results of this study have implications for the interpretation of past and future studies that require subjects to assume roles different from their roles before testing. Because there is no guarantee that instructions given to subjects will affect their behavior in the intended manner, experimenters must take heed when placing volunteers in hypothetical experimental situations.