Daily activity-travel and fragmentation patterns in the weekly cycle: evidence of the role of ICT, time use, and personal networks

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an analysis of people’s time use patterns, incorporating the mediating role of ICT and personal networks on their daily activity-travel patterns, explicitly addressing the issue of activity fragmentation for social-based episodes. Implementing a seven-day time use survey, which includes temporal, spatial, and social characteristics for each activity, and using a theoretical framework based on current theory, a structural equation model was estimated to study these relationships. The results suggest a positive effect of ICT episodes on social activity interaction, activity fragmentation, and out-of-home social allocated time. We also found that ICTs encourage social trip generation only indirectly. Finally, those who had a social network physically close showed higher levels of fragmentation in their social episodes and less out-of-home social activity time. These results add evidence to this research stream, enhancing, and further clarifying ICT’s role in people’s daily activity behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Travel behavior
• time use
• social networks
• ICT
• fragmentation
• activity participation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ANID [FONDECYT Grant # 1171113]; ANID [FONDAP Grant # 15110020]; Universidad de La Frontera [Grant # DI18-0065].