Benjamin Gramsch-Calvo


Last Name

Gramsch-Calvo

First Name

Benjamin

ORCID

0000-0001-6599-864X

Organisational unit

03823 - Grêt-Regamey, Adrienne / Grêt-Regamey, Adrienne

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2021 - 202627
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Publications 1 - 10 of 27
  • Place generator & place interpreter
    Item type: Other Conference Item
    Gramsch-Calvo, Benjamin; Axhausen, Kay W. (2023)
  • The effect of dynamic lockdowns on public transport demand in times of COVID-19
    Item type: Journal Article
    Gramsch-Calvo, Benjamin; Guevara, C. Angelo; Munizaga, Marcela; et al. (2022)
    Transport Policy
    Governments around the globe have taken different measures to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, including the lockdown of people to decrease infections. The effect of such a strategy on transport demand is important not only for the current pandemic but also to understand changes in transport use and for future emergencies. We analyse a 2019–2020 database of smartcard data of trips from the city of Santiago, Chile, which followed a dynamic lockdown strategy in which its municipalities were temporarily restricted. We use this variation over time across municipalities to study the effect of lockdowns on public transportation using trips on buses and metro, accounting for the variation of municipalities that were under lockdown in a given day. We found a decrease of 72.3% at the beginning of the pandemic when schools suspended in-person classes, while the dynamic lockdowns reduced public transport demand by 12.1%. We also found that the effect of lockdowns decreased after the fifth week of their application, suggesting a short-term effectiveness of such policy to reduce mobility. Regarding sociodemographic effects, we found that lockdowns have a stronger impact on reducing public transport demand in municipalities with a larger proportion of the elderly population (2% additional reduction per 1% increase in the share of the elderly population) and high-income households (16% additional reduction for 1000 USD increase in GDP per capita).
  • Socially motivated travel and regular destination choice survey pre-test
    Item type: Conference Paper
    Gramsch-Calvo, Benjamin; Axhausen, Kay W. (2022)
    For transportation modelers understanding and predicting spatial behavior has been a challenging task. There have been different approaches to explain what factors influence the decision to go to specific locations and at what times of the day; new methodologies are still under development in the literature. The two main tools used to collect data on mobility patterns and decisions are GPS and Survey methods; the first method gives detailed information about each specific trip. The second method is used to understand its motivations and reasons. In order to contribute to the understanding of spatial behaviors we propose a new survey method that help understand regular activity behavior: The Place Generator and the Place Interpreter. This methodology is under development, and the results shown in this paper are the pre-test of the survey. This methodology consists on asking the respondents about the locations they regularly visit, by type of location, followed by some questions on why those places are chosen. Our interest in this methodology is to understand the social motivation of destination choice, mainly how other individuals can impact on our interest on specific locations. For this purpose, we ask questions about the perceived age, socioeconomic status and other characteristics of visitors to each location.
  • Going the extra mile
    Item type: Working Paper
    Gramsch-Calvo, Benjamin; Okamura, Koki; Takami, Kiyoshi; et al. (2024)
    Arbeitsberichte Verkehrs- und Raumplanung
    The purpose of this study is to develop a joint activity destination choice model to analyze the effect of clique-level characteristics on leisure behavior and evaluate the effect of incorporating clique-level attributes on the out-of-sample predictive ability of the model. To do so, we propose a discrete choice model that includes the preference for the ego and the cliques’ travel time; allowing us to estimate the willingness to travel to reduce the average clique travel time, showing that in joint destination choice there is a trade-off between the travel times of the individuals participating in the activity. We then compared the Clique model with an Ego model in terms of out-of-sample predictive power, showing that the Ego model overpredicts closer venues, underestimating the total kilometers traveled. The results show the importance of considering social networks in destination choice when such models are used for transport policy and agent-based simulations; if the models only consider the ego as the decision maker, these models will vastly underestimate the total kilometers traveled.
  • El Efecto de las Cuarentenas Dinámicas en la Demanda de Transporte Público en Tiempos de COVID-19
    Item type: Other Conference Item
    Gramsch-Calvo, Benjamin; Guevara, C. Angelo; Munizaga, Marcela A.; et al. (2021)
  • Meet me halfway
    Item type: Working Paper
    Ji, Joanna; Gramsch-Calvo, Benjamin; Axhausen, Kay W.; et al. (2024)
    Arbeitsberichte Verkehrs- und Raumplanung
    How far are you literally willing to go to meet your friends and loved ones? Our study breaks down the different factors that influence leisure destination choice between pairs of socially connected people - friends, family, acquaintances. Using a novel dataset of self-reported frequently visited leisure destinations in Zurich, Switzerland, we estimate two joint destination choice models that in addition to joint travel impedance and zonal attractiveness, explicitly consider relationship attributes, such as relationship length, relationship strength or gender homophily. Results suggest that the impact of travel distances on utility differ considerably for home visits and out-of-home leisure, with the marginal disutility of travel being more than three times larger for out-of-home leisure for some pairs. At the same time, we show that the disutility of travel is mitigated by stronger and longer relationships, suggesting a higher willingness to travel further to meet with strong social ties. These results provide new insights on the behavioral mechanism behind joint activities, a subject that has been gaining attention in recent years. Such behavioral insights are not only important to improve the behavioral realism of activity-based models but have the potential of being incorporated in agent-based representations of such models.
  • Exploring the impact of the social network geography on the individual's activity space using structural equation models
    Item type: Conference Paper
    Gramsch-Calvo, Benjamin; Axhausen, Kay W. (2023)
    hEART 2023: 11th Symposium of the European Association for Research in Transportation
    Most leisure travel has social motivations, one of them is to be in contact with people from their social network, this means that the decision does not only depends on individual preferences and restrictions but also on the other person (or persons) involved in the activity. This means that the places an individual visits for leisure are strongly correlated with the geographic location of their social network. This hypothesis is tested with a structural equation model that includes social needs and mobility demand as latent variables. The model shows a strong correlation between these two variables, showing a positive impact on the geographic distribution of social networks and the number of contacts with the area of leisure activity space, and the number of frequently visited locations. This model shows the social network's importance in individual mobility decisions and patterns.
  • Exploring the influence of social relations and knowledge of the urban environment on leisure travel
    Item type: Journal Article
    Gramsch-Calvo, Benjamin; Axhausen, Kay W. (2024)
    Journal of Transport Geography
    Most leisure travel is motivated by interactions within one’s social network, which influence the choice of activities undertaken in the city. In this paper, we employ a structural regression model to distinguish between the direct effect of social relations on leisure travel —measured as venue variety and activity space— and a complementary effect through the knowledge of the urban environment. The model was applied to a survey conducted in Zurich, Switzerland. The results demonstrate that individuals with stronger social relations are more aware of the activities that can be performed in the city. Furthermore, social relations serve as a stronger explanatory variable for leisure activity space, whereas knowledge of the urban environment has more influence on venue variety. Accessibility also plays a significant role; higher accessibility reduces leisure activity space while increasing venue variety.
  • The Importance of the Social Environment on Leisure Destination Choice
    Item type: Working Paper
    Gramsch-Calvo, Benjamin; Axhausen, Kay W. (2024)
    Arbeitsberichte Verkehrs- und Raumplanung
    Individuals are fond of belonging to a social environment with a similar social background, which can impact the individual’s decision to visit specific venues for leisure activities. Using data from Zurich, we have measured the preference for a social environment in four categories of leisure venues: restaurants, cafes, bars, and nightclubs; the estimation was performed using a mixed multinomial logit model to see how homophily for socioeconomic characteristics can impact the decisions of choosing a leisure venue. The models included three homophilic preferences: age, income, and cultural origin as variables of interest. The results show a positive impact of the three variables studied: age is the most relevant in all venue categories, income shows a higher relevance when individuals choose restaurants or cafes, and cultural background is more important in bars and nightclubs. These results show that the socioeconomic characteristics of the social environment are relevant for the choice of leisure destination. These findings can contribute to the formulation of policies to create more diverse leisure environments and socially cohesive communities.
  • Place generator & place interpreter
    Item type: Working Paper
    Gramsch-Calvo, Benjamin; Axhausen, Kay W. (2023)
    When observing the temporal trajectory of an individual, there is a high probability of visiting a known place; this is due to the central component of habit and routine in human mobility behavior. To understand those routine activities, we propose a new survey method: the Place Generator & the Place Interpreter, based on the name generator and name interpreter survey methodology for ego-centric social networks. In the survey, we asked the participants to name the locations they regularly visit for leisure, by category. This methodology captures the characteristics of the locations and the reasons to be chosen. We tested the methodology in the Zurich Metropolitan Area in Switzerland, focusing on urban leisure activities and the social environment of the locations. Hence, we ask the individuals to describe the reasons for choosing that specific location and the socio-demographic characteristics of the other visitors. This methodology worked well when compared with earlier long-duration GPS tracking surveys. Respondents report, on average, 9.85 locations for nine types of locations, mainly supermarkets and restaurants or cafes, and respondents can describe their similarities with other visitors to that location. The survey is complemented with a survey of sociodemographic characteristics and the respondent's ego-centric social network to get information on social connections and their impact on leisure activity.
Publications 1 - 10 of 27