Exploring the Travel Planning Hierarchy: An Interactive Web Experiment

207 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2000.The dissertation examined the complex decision process based on the concepts of rigidity, centrality and sequentiality. A two-phase methodology was used. The first phase was based on three empirical studies whereby exploring the concepts such as complexity, sequentiality and contingent hierarchy of trip decision process. The second phase was based on an experimental procedure to examine factors that influence the pre-trip travel planning process including (1) contextual effects; (2) information framing effects; and, (3) cognitive factors such as the travel experience and stated travel expertise. The study found evidence consistent with recent research findings that a trip decision behavior is a complex process of adaption to, and adjustment of, decision contexts. Furthermore, the complex travel decision behavior can be better represented as a sequential/hierarchical, and contingent process. Implications and future research were suggested.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD