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

•Reference models are dedicated to non-ordered alternatives and generalize the multinomial logit model (MNL).•The link function of reference models is that of the MNL replacing the logistic cumulative distribution function (cdf) by other cdfs (e.g., Gumbel, Student).•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.•The Student distribution with low degrees of freedom is able to capture the threshold value at which probability changes.•The usual extensions of the MNL, such as the mixed logit model or the nested logit model, can also be developed for reference models. 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 IIA 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.