Car drivers’ route choice decisions at unbundled highways and the influance of travel information presented while driving

With the increase of congestions on the highways and upcoming usage of in-car traffic information systems the older systems need to be reevaluated. These systems are there to provide traffic information and decrease traffic congestions. The DRIPs are mainly placed at unbundled roads, which consist of a regional road and local road. Separating the regional and local traffic streams increases the traffic flow and reduces the congestions. The DRIPS is not the only systems that provides traffic information while driving on unbundled road situations, there are several other means of receiving traffic information. These other means are the navigation systems, smartphone applications, and radio systems. The combination of these systems is called in-car systems. The current road-side systems (DRIPs) can be compared with the new evolving in-car traffic information systems. A stated preference experiment is used to collect data of road user’s route choice decisions at unbundled highways with use of different traffic information media. The collected data is analyzed using a multinomial logit model, which resulted in showing which attributes affect the route choice behavior. There was a difference made between route choice specific attributes and context related attributes. The route choice specific attributes truck traffic at the regional route and exit lanes at the local traffic route have never been researched before and gave new insights in the route choice behavior. Were a high level percentage of truck traffic showed an increase in preference towards a regional road and an increase of exit lanes a decrease in use of local roads. Travel delays times displayed by a DRIP and a DRIP being active had the most significant impact on route choice behavior.