Comprehensive Exploratory Analysis of Truck Route Choice Diversity in Florida

This study presents a comprehensive exploratory analysis of truck route choice diversity in the state of Florida, for both long-haul and short-haul truck travel segments. It employs six metrics to measure three different dimensions of diversity in truck route choice between any given origin–destination (OD) pair. These dimensions are: (a) number of distinct routes used to travel between the OD pair, (b) the extent of overlap (or lack thereof) among the routes, and (c) the evenness (or dominance) in the usage of different unique routes. The diversity metrics were applied to a large database of 73,000 truck routes derived from 200 million GPS records. Descriptive analysis and statistical modeling of the diversity metrics offered insights into the determinants of various dimensions of truck route choice diversity between any OD pair. The results are useful for improving choice set generation algorithms for truck route choice modeling and in truck route policies and investments