Journal of Korean Society of Transportation ISSN:1229-1366(Print) 2234-4217(Online) 대한교통학회지

This study aims to evaluate the availability of ABM (Active-Based Model), FEATHERS, as a policy evaluation tool. To achieve the goal, scenario analysis on flexible working policy was conducted to measure its impact on activity-travel behavior. As a consequence, there seems no significant change in worker's daily life, other than mitigating traffic congestion due to decreasing commuting travel in the rush hour. The result of VKT (vehicle kilometers traveled) shows an opposite pattern according to given household/individual constraints. The scenario analysis on telecommuting indicates a decreasing trend in both travel frequency and distance because of the diminished number of commuting trips. As the activity space of telecommuters is shifted to a residential area, there are more short-distance trips by using non-motorized transport, which leads to decrease in VKT (using a private vehicle). Thus, the sensitivity of VKT by population groups varies due to transport mode shift (between personal and another mode) and growing non-work trips (using a private mode). This study found few things. First, it is necessary to evaluate the details of policy impact by population groups since it can be varied depending on household/individual characteristics. Second, the case study shows a promising performance of ABM as policy measurement that provides reality in policy evaluation. Third, ABM allows us to do more accurate analysis (i.e. time-series analysis by population groups) of policy assessment than those of FSM (Four-Step Model). Lastly, a further effort in data collection, literature review, and expert survey should be made to enhance the accuracy and confidence of future research.