A new family of qualitative choice models: An application of reference models to travel mode choice

This paper considers the recently introduced family of reference models dedicated to non ordered alternatives. The link function of reference models is that of the multinomial logit model (MNL) replacing the logistic cumulative distribution function (cdf) by other cdfs (e.g., Gumbel, Student). We determine all usual economic outputs (willingness-to-pay, elasticities, ...). We also show that the HA property generally does not hold for this family of models, because of their noninvariance to the alternative chosen as a reference. We estimate and compare five reference models to the MNL on a travel mode-choice survey: according to the chosen cdf, reference models lead to a better fit and retrieve consistent economic outputs estimations even when there is a high unobserved heterogeneity. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.