Pougala, J., Hillel, T., and Bierlaire, M.

Reconstructing daily schedules of individuals: a utility maximization approach

Speaker: Bierlaire Michel

Lunch Seminar in Economics, Department of Economics and Management, University of Luxembourg

May 05, 2021

The understanding and prediction of daily activity patterns is important to understand the use of resources such as transportation and energy. In this presentation, we propose a modeling approach based on utility maximization. We assume that an individual schedules her day in order to maximize her overall utility. To do so, she solves a mixed integer optimization problem which combines discrete decisions, such as whether or not to participate in different activities, and continuous decisions, such as the start times and duration of planned activities. We propose a detailed specification of the optimization problem, illustrate it on concrete examples, and discuss how the model parameters can be calibrated from real-world data.