Household Structure and the Travel Pattern of Senior Citizens for Leisure Trips

The travel patterns of the senior citizens are significantly influenced by social and cultural norms. Household structure also has an important bearing on the travel pattern of senior citizens. The specific household structure and the number of co-residents have huge implications on their travel outcomes. This investigative paper is an attempt to analyse the trips undertaken by senior citizens for leisure activities. The aim of the study is to examine the travel mode choice and length of the leisure trips made by senior citizens, based on household structure. The household questionnaire survey method is adopted for data collection. The gathered data is analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and NLOGIT 5 software. The variables analysed for the study include income, employment and education grouped under socio-economic variables; age, household size and gender grouped under socio-demographic variables; driving licence, shared rides, activity, frequency of travel, time of travel, mode, trip length, travel cost and travel time grouped under travel characteristics. Decision trees are developed to analyse the trip length. Choice modelling, i.e. multinomial logit (MNL) model, is adopted to find the travel mode preference of senior citizens for leisure trips.