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Abstract
Ryuichi Kitamura's review of activity-based travel analysis provides a useful evaluation of the research results and contributions of this area of research. The purpose of this discussion is to add an additional and somewhat different perspective to this evaluation. First, I will outline my perspective on activity-based travel analysis research. Next, I will discuss the objective and importance of this research from that perspective. Finally, I will discuss the applications value of this research. Evaluations of activity-based travel analysis research should recognize that this research is motivated by the obvious, but often ignored, premise that travel is a complex behavior. This complexity arises out of the close relationship between travel behavior and activity participation and the dependence of both of these behaviors on the wide range of characteristics which describe individuals and households. This complexity provides the basis to argue that current, not activity-based, approaches to understanding, explaining and forecasting travel behavior are inappropriately simplistic. The complexity of travel behavior and its relationship to household activities was recognized in some of the early literature on travel analysis and transportation planning (Chapin 1968, 1974; Oi & Shuldiner 1962; Mitchell & Rapkin 1954). However, most research and analysis undertaken over the intervening period has decomposed the analysis of travel into a set of simple problems which, to a great extent, have been analyzed as if they were distinct and separable. Hagerstrand (1970, 1973) proposed a new framework for analyzing the movement of people through time and space which provided the foundation for much of what is currently known as activity-based travel analysis. The perspective from which I wish to evaluate this field of research is its contribution to understanding a more complex and more realistic representation of travel behavior. The research need is to develop a theoretical framework within which to relate the multiple themes of human/social behavior'to the generation of the need or desire to participate in activities and the derived demand for travel. Activity-based travel analysis does not and should not search for a single theory of travel demand but multiple theories of the behavior of people in society. These theories, based on economics, sociology, geography, and psychology concern the motivation for acti~/ity participation

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