Considering activity pattern to achieve a more sustainable commuting behavior

While commuting allows workers to take part to the economy, this specific trip represents a non-negligible share of the total trips undertaken by individuals. Because of the repetitive pattern both in time and space of the home-to-work trip, different transport policies can be implemented in order to reduce some of its negative impacts. Travel Demand Management (TDM) measures aim at reducing the transport demand or inducing a modal shift towards active or public transport modes. Too often, these strategies, by focusing narrowly on the home-to-work trip, do not take into account the complexity of the individuals’ daily activity chain. Indeed, the complexity of the activity pattern might impede some workers to use public or active modes for the commuting trip despite, for instance, a very short home-to-work distance. Results of a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach indicates that, for working days, socio-demographic variables affect more car use than activity-chain complexity. Thus, the proposed TDM measures aiming at decreasing car use for commuting takes into account the daily activity behavior but also suggest ways to deal with individual’s characteristics