Modelling social aspects of travel behaviour: a preliminary review

Recent travel forecasting models have focussed strongly upon the fact that travel is derived from the activities in which people participate, such as work, school, shopping, sport, leisure, and social events. Participation in social activities is determined by one's friends and the groups that one is a member of, i.e., their household, their workplace/school, sporting groups, voluntary organisations and clubs. These acquaintances form part of an individual's social network: a representation of the people one interacts with. This paper presents a review of the intersection between social networks and travel behaviour, identifies the key concepts, and discusses how agent-based models could be used to explore the effects of social networks on travel behaviour.