Cognitive map of the transportation network

This paper investigates the formation of a temporal cognitive map (mental image) of a transportation network within a traveler, which entails the traveler’s global conceptualunderstanding of congestion or degree of crowding of the network. In order to gain insight into the formation of a cognitive map in this paper we present the results of a driving simulator study executed among 90 participants. In this experiment, the followingindependent variables were connected to the formation of a mental image of the network: (i) dispersion of the links’ travel time throughout the network, (ii) number of trips the travelermakes, (iii) traveler’s gender, (iii) traveler’s driving experiences, (iv) traveler’s natural optimism or pessimism level, and (v) salient or noticeable features on the network. Severalnonparametric (distribution-free) tests are employed to test the hypotheses. The resultsindicate that, apart from traveler’s gender and salient or noticeable features on the network, other factors significantly affect the degree of the recognizability of the network elements by the traveler.

Keywords:

Cognitive map , Experimental psychology , Day-to-day modeling , Travel time cognition and perception , Memory , Judgment error