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Presentation giselle ramos tu delft
1. Masterclass: Writing a report
My own PhD research and experience in writing a
report
Giselle Ramos
14-03-13
Delft
University of
Technology
Challenge the future
2. My PhD research
Background and objective
• Growth in mobility impacting network performance
• The role of ICT solutions
• Optimize the use of available road capacity
• Substitute for physical trips
• The relationship between traffic information and travellers’
behaviour: accuracy, consistency and compliance aspects
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3. My PhD research
Background and objective
• Assess network dynamics taking into account the impact of travel
information on travellers’ behaviour
Travellers’ behaviour Route choice behaviour
route A
route C Destination
Origin
route B
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4. My PhD research
Challenges
• How to investigate travellers’ behaviour?
• Possibilities to investigate how travellers would react in a specific
context: data collection
• How to model travellers’ behaviour?
• Which theory to use?
Revealed preference data
Modelling framework
based on Utility Theory
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5. My PhD research
Research approach: data collection
• GPS devices (actual route choices)
• Real-time traffic information via TomTom
• Traffic condition of network (actual traffic situation)
• Travel diaries & interviews (travelers’ perception)
Participants equipped with GPS devices to be used during their commute trips
and with personalized traffic information
A travel diary had to be filled in after each trip (reaction toward information,
perceptions about the trip made and expectations about the next trip)
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6. My PhD research
Data collection setup
• 32 commuters in the Netherlands
• 9 weeks of data collection (May 9th to July 12th, 2011)
• 44% women and 56% men
• Age between 23 and 60 years old (41% between 35 and 45)
• Commute frequencies between 2 and 5 days/week (61%
commuting 5 days/week)
Treatment
Period No info Info
(or public info sources) (free info sources + TomTom)
Initial 3 weeks 100% (32 participants) 0% (0 participants)
Last 6 weeks 20% (6 participants) 80% (26 participants)
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7. My PhD research
Data collection setup: Traffic information
• Available public sources of information (radio, VMS, TV, etc.) and
via TomTom (personalized real time traffic information)
• No info treatment: public sources of travel information. To be in
accordance to reality
• Info treatment: public sources + personalized travel information
• The personalized real time traffic information consisted of a
recommendation regarding the fastest route and estimated arrival
time and delay given the indicated departure time
• Possibility to plan the departure time
• Possibility of compare the travel times between suggested and
alternative route
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8. My PhD research
Data collection setup: Traffic information
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9. My PhD research
Data collection setup: Travel diary
• The travel diary consisted of 5 sections related to:
i. general information such as date of the trip, origin and destination
ii. behavior and reaction towards pre-trip information such as whether
they had received pre-trip information, sources of information
provision, how they had reacted to it, etc.
iii. behavior and reaction towards en-route information
iv. feedback about the trip just made such as actual travel time,
whether in hindsight the same route and departure time would have
been chosen, etc.
v. expectations about the next trip with respect to their intended route
choice, expected travel time, flexibility regarding arrival times, etc.
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10. My PhD research
Data collection setup: Interviews
• Travelers were interviewed in 3 occasions:
i. Beginning of the experiment: questions regarding perceptions of
routes’ characteristics, routes’ preferences, usual departure times,
use of pre-route and en-route information and willingness to pay to
use traffic information
ii. After 5 weeks of data collection: questions about reaction to
information such as how often the route suggested by TomTom
matched expectations, how often they chose the suggested route,
satisfaction with the information and opinion about its reliability
iii. End of experiment: combination of the questions presented at the
beginning and in the middle of the experiment
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11. My PhD research
Outcomes
• Sample size (Consider only valid trips only: trips in which both the origin
and destination of the GPS trace is within 1.5 km distance from home and
work)
• Travel diaries and GPS traces: sample size of 897 trips
• Interviews: sample size of 32 interviews
• Descriptive analysis
• Comparisons between the valid GPS traces, travel diaries, interviews
and network data
• Modelling: in progress (GPS data and network data)
• Dynamic discrete choice modelling
• Attributes: travel time for informed and non-informed travellers, road
type and information provision
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12. Writing a report
What worked?
• Write while you read/decide:
• For literature review: Read paper and write about it (AND) add
references to EndNote.
• Data collection: write the reasoning/why you chose something – you will
forget it later.
• Schedule regular appointments with supervisor (if cancelations
happen, there will be a new appointment soon)
• Reminder about deadlines/What to discuss in the next meetings (?)
• Set a clear deadline when you waiting for a feedback
• Discuss what your plans are and ask for feedback while you are
working – do not wait to finish the whole report
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13. Writing a report
What worked?
• Make a table of contents: it helps structuring/remembering what you
were planning to write
• Write more or less structured paragraphs. Revise the whole chapter
at the end.
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14. Writing a report
What did not work
• Ask for feedback without specifying date: could take longer or
come when you do not need anymore
• Problems scheduling appointments: always in my agenda, but
not necessarily in the supervisor
• Set strict/tight deadlines for me (varies from person to person, but
I do not work under pressure)
• Revise the same chapter several times one after the other: after
the 2nd revision I was so familiar with the text that could not find
anything strange/wrong anymore
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