Between routines and variety seeking

The navigation of travellers in space, the daily distances travelled, the determinants affecting spatial reach and spatial choice processes choice have been for long important foci of travel behavior research. Detailed information about the spatial aspects of travel is an essential base for traffic forecasting and the evaluation and design of transport infrastructure. Nevertheless, there is still need to better understand the characteristics of spatial mobility, especially if turning to questions of variability, regularity and dynamics of movements in space. Important for the lack of research into the structures of reoccurring behavioural patterns and the stability of locational choice was both, the fact that suitable longitudinal data has not been really available so far and the insufficient accuracy of spatial information in travel data. This data availability and research deficit has motivated researchers in the last few years to collect suitable data capturing the variability in individual travel as well as to develop methodology for detailed analysis. The exploration of the 1999 Mobidrive six-week travel diary data has deepened the understanding of daily travel routines and variability. At present, another innovative data set based on Global Positioning Systems information is prepared for investigation. Based on these two long-duration data sets with a high level of spatial accuracy, this paper reports on results on the variability of spatial choice and the structure of human activity spaces.