Construction of Daytime Activity Profiles from Household Travel Survey Data

The perception of population as the number of people living in a region is entrenched firmly in the minds of many urban planners and transport professionals. In the past, the use of such a residential or home-based description of population would have suited most local area planning and transportation modeling needs. In light of this, the use of a daytime distribution of population to locate services and facilities forms a radical departure from conventional practice. However, there is a clear need to consider the location of people across the day in planning for the provision of facilities that will be used during the day. Data from the Victorian Activity and Travel Survey were used to develop methods by which daytime population behavior can be examined. Specifically, two measures were developed. A population profile provides an estimate of population within any region at any time of the day. A visitation curve supplements the population profile by monitoring the number of people using a region across the day. Further disaggregation of the population to reveal behavioral and demographic characteristics constitutes an important component of the methodology.