Using Social Network Analysis to profile people based on their e-communication and travel balance

Abstract:

The new era of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) enables people to communicate and interact with each other in new and different manners, changing the way they conduct their daily lives. This change inevitably has significant implications for physical travel in the age of electronic communication (e-communication). This paper aims to provide greater insight into people's travel behavior based on their e-Communication to Travel balance (C/. T balance). This balance represents the ratio between an individual's e-communication and physical travel. The analysis studies the relevance of social ties in Ahmedabad, India, as a source of explanation of social activity, thus travel, undertaken by individuals. It is hypothesized that the C/. T balance emerges from an individual's social network characteristics. The ability of an individual to engage in social activities not only depends on the individual's socioeconomic and lifestyle attributes, but also on the 'modality' of such interactions (e.g. physical travel or e-communication). The different modalities create different social networks. Each network represents a particular flow of potential activity travel generated by interaction between the individuals. These networks have been clustered on the basis of their C/. T balance to get distinct people's profiles that can be used to target transport and ICT policies better. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.