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Activity-Based Analysis

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Handbook of Regional Science

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Abstract

Activity-based analysis (ABA) is an approach to understanding transportation, communication, urban, and related social and physical systems using individual actions in space and time as the basis. Although the conceptual foundations, theory, and methodology have a long tradition, until recently an aggregate trip-based approach dominated transportation science and planning. Changes in the business and policy environment for transportation and the increasingly availability of disaggregate mobility data have led to ABA emerging as the dominant approach. This chapter reviews the ABA conceptual foundations and methodologies. ABA techniques include data-driven methods that analyze mobility data directly as well as develop inputs for ABA modeling. ABA models include econometric models, rule-based models and microsimulation/agent-based models. This chapter concludes by identifying major research frontiers in ABA.

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Acknowledgments

Dr. Walied Othman (University of Zurich) provided the Mathematica code to generate the network time prism (Fig. 4); this is available at http://othmanw.submanifold.be/. Ying Song (Ohio State University) generated some of the graphics. Ying Song and Calvin Tribby (Ohio State University) provided valuable comments on this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Harvey J. Miller

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  1. Harvey J. Miller
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Correspondence to Harvey J. Miller .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Economic Geography and GIScience, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria

    Manfred M. Fischer

  2. and Business Administration Department of Spatial Economics, Free University Faculty of Economics, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Peter Nijkamp

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Miller, H.J. (2019). Activity-Based Analysis. In: Fischer, M., Nijkamp, P. (eds) Handbook of Regional Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36203-3_106-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36203-3_106-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-36203-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-36203-3

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