A Covariate-Dependent Choice Model for Capturing Traveler Heterogeneity in Crowdshippers’ Decisions

This study investigates traveler heterogeneity in crowdshipping participation decisions through a Stated Adaptation Choice (SAC) experiment. A covariate-dependent utility-based model is estimated. The taste parameters for contextual and alternative specific variables are defined as a function of social demographic variables and stated importance (SI) of each variable. By incorporating these factors as covariates in the utility specification of random parameters, the model captures both structural and random heterogeneity in preferences. Empirical results reveal that socio-demographic variables influence responses to designed attributes in diverse ways, while stated importance exhibits consistent effects so that attributes rated as more important exert stronger average impacts. Incorporating both socio-demographics and SI scores significantly improves model fit. This integration yields richer behavioral insights and improves model performance, particularly in complex experiments for emerging services like crowdshipping.