Home, Spatial Familiarity And Routines In Mobility Behaviours

This research explores the unreasoned influences of locational behaviour – i.e. locational habits – in Activity- Travel-Behaviour (ATB). In particular, the interrelations between Activity Space characteristics and mobility patterns. In a wider research effort, behavioural (in)variability of space are investigated along biographies and inter-personal constraints, to propose bottom-up strategies for a human-centric transition towards sustainable urban territories, and greener modal choices. Even though the reasoned influences of locational behaviours have been largely theorised and experimented (e.g. effects of urban forms, space representation or mental maps on travels), the unreasoned influence of habits and familiarity remains scattered in the literature. Yet, we believe that time- space-activity habits (invariability, periodicity) hold a significant role in daily mobility behaviours and drive most of everyday-life organisation. Building on the approaches of modality style, action space, and mobility motifs, the contribution of this research lies in a multivariate analysis of (1) multi-day ATB motifs (or invariants) and (2) activity space characteristics and topological properties. Analyses are based on an eight- week georeferenced travel-diary collected in Switzerland in 2019. Contextual open data is also leveraged, including a territorial typology, the OpenStreetMap street-network and the General Transit Feed Specification data. Early results tend to validate a causal relationship between the action space geometries and ATB motifs. Home-attachment regimes seem to have an important role in the activity space forms. From a purely scheduling and space consumption perspective, results suggest that exclusive drivers do not necessarily have the more complex spatial-diaries, even in areas of high spatial capital.