Alternate closed-form weibit-based model for assessing travel choice with an oddball alternative

Herein, a weibit-based model is proposed as an alternative to Recker's logit choice model with an “oddball” alternative, which explicitly focuses on a single alternative that has unique attributes to other conventional alternatives in the choice set [Recker, W.W. (1995). Discrete choice with an oddball alternative. Transportation Research, 29B, 201–212]. While retaining the closed-form probability expression, the proposed model handles the oddball alternative using a multiplicative random disutility function assuming Weibull distributed random components. The proposed model thus allows disutility-dependent perception variances of both the conventional and oddball alternatives and a flexible variance ratio between them, which are effective to reflect the way how individuals perceive varying magnitudes of travel disutility from different attributes. This gives the proposed model more flexibility to consider various heterogeneity issues, including the heterogeneous perceptions of conventional alternatives, heterogeneous perceptions of unique and common attributes of the oddball alternative, and heterogeneous features of conventional and oddball alternatives. The empirical application of the proposed model is explored to highlight its practical performance. The results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed model in the choice contexts where both oddball effect and heterogeneity issues need to be considered. The proposed model could further provide new behavioral insights into various decision-making scenarios of transportation networks, such as transportation mode choices in the current era of emerging technologies and destination choices in urban agglomerations.