Prospect theory-based travel choice behavior modeling: State of the art and critical issues

This paper reviews applications of the prospect theory in travel mode choice analyses. Some critical issues are presented and literature are reviewed with respect to these issues. From the literature review we found: 1) most applications only focus on travelers' route choice behavior and applications dealing with multi-attributes are rare; 2) several ways to define reference point are proposed; 3) travel experience and travel information is considered in some cases; 4) parameter estimation is conducted but they are somewhat inadequate; and 5) almost all studies use a single reference point. The objective of the paper is to provide an adequate and comprehensive review on prospect theory applications to enhance travel choice modeling to show the state of the art and to guide the future research.