The Applicability of Prospect Theory in Travel Behavior Research

Traffic system is typical for its uncertainty under which travelers’ behaviors appear to be bounded rational. Prospect Theory was proposed to deal with bounded rational decision problems and conforms more to travelers’ actual behaviors. In order to better apply Prospect Theory to travel behavior research and modeling, this paper intends to investigate the applicability of Prospect Theory in travel behavior research. It is concluded that whether Prospect Theory is applicable to travel behavior research or not depends not only on features of certain decision problems, but also on travelers’ characteristics as well as whether an alternative is uncertain or not. In addition, when conducting a research we should consider and weigh comprehensively among different theories according to their properties and application scope, other than be restricted to certain kind of theory.