Evaluating the effects of information reliability on travellers' route choice

This paper analyses travellers' behaviour with respect to route choice in a context where an Advanced Traveller Information System (ATIS) is in place. ATIS are important applications in the field of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). However, the practical impact of ATIS is still a matter for debate, and identification of expected route choice behaviour under ATIS is one of the main ways to assess their practical importance. Travellers' choices are frequently explored by means of stated preference (SP) approaches. In this paper we discuss some issues to be addressed when an SP survey is carried out, with particular reference to cases where a repeated choice approach is employed in the survey. Our analysis concerns an application of the SP approach in a pilot study aimed at identifying the effects of ATIS accuracy on travellers??? compliance with information. This paper aims to make two major contributions. First of all, empirical analyses based on proper indicators and statistical tests are suggested in order to evaluate how the collected data have to be handled in order to eliminate transient route-choice observations. These are due to the warm-up phase inherently associated with the survey method adopted, dealing with repeated choices. Secondly, we analyse (stationary) route choice in order to assess the effects of information reliability (and the kind of information) on both route choice and compliance.