Dr Els Hannes successfully defended her PhD thesis on Mental Maps and Daily Travel

We are very pleased to announce that Dr Els Hannes (left) has successfully defended her PhD thesis on 25th June 2010. Els has been a member of Merlien Institute since 2008 and has contributed enormously to the field of transportation research through the use of CAQDAS and qualitative research methods. Below, you will find a summary of her thesis and pictures taken during her defense. On behalf of Merlien Institute and the Advisory Board, I would like to wish her BIG success in her future endeavours! - Jasper Lim

Mental Maps and Daily Travel: Qualitative Exploration and Modelling Framework
Activity based models of travel demand generally rely on broad assumptions about human behaviour. This research aims at establishing a better representation of true behavioural mechanisms underlying activity-travel scheduling. More specifically, the integration of ‘mental map’ characteristics is sought. This ‘mental map’ notion covers both individual’s mental model of decision problems and individual’s cognition of space.  

First, the mental map in daily travel is explored. Therefore, 20 respondents keep a diary during one week, and they are interviewed. Hence, the routine nature of daily travel is revealed. Based on the findings of this qualitative research, a computational concept is developed in the second phase to model the routine mental map of a single individual. As an example, the work-related travel choices of a mother of 3 young children are modelled in a Bayesian decision network. To enable further generalization of this individual model, normal work and school routines of young households are mapped based on population data in the final phase. This way, family patterns are developed that are used to benchmark the outcome of the FEATHERS model of travel demand for Flanders. Ultimately, these patterns can be implemented as skeletons in the model to improve its behavioural realism.

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