Abstract
Acknowledging the relevance of social networks on (social) travel behavior, the objective of
this paper is to study comparatively the distance patterns between the home locations of social
contacts. Analyses are based on five recent personal network data collections from four
countries: Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Chile. Multilevel models, which
explicitly account for the hierarchical structure of the data sets, are used to study the role of
the explanatory variables to understand the spatiality of social contacts. Modeling results
suggest that alter’s characteristics (such as type of relationship, emotional closeness, and
duration of the relationship) as well as personal network composition (alters with a certain
relationship with the ego) constitute stronger predictors than ego’s socio-demographics across
the countries. In addition, the comparative analyses suggest differences between countries on
relevant key variables such as ego’s income and the ego-alter tie strength.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Travel Behaviour Research (IATBR 2012), 15-20 July 2012, Toronto, Canada |
Pages | 1-31 |
Publication status | Published - 2012 |