Modeling of Commuters’ Mode Choice and Office Location/Relocation Preferences of Business Firms for Informed Decision-Making and Planning: Applications of Stated Preference Methodology

Stated preference (SP) methodology is used to examine the mode choice preferences of commuters considering the addition of a non-existent Light Rail Transit (LRT) system. The study also investigates how telecommuting may influence the location/relocation of offices within a multinucleated region. Two separate surveys were carried out: A survey on commuters’ mode choice; and a survey on office location/relocation preferences within the Ottawa municipal area. Surveys elicited SP responses to a number of hypothetical scenarios defined according to the principles of SP experimental design.Additional information about the characteristics of commuters and companies was also obtained. Discrete choice analysis was used to estimate the parameters of the utility function using data collected from the surveys. The innovation in this research is the use of these SP methodologies to understand the role of certain factors in commuters’ mode preferences and the location/relocation preferences of office space within an urban area.