Is there such a thing as typical behaviour? The case of occupancy in homes

User behavior plays a key role in the energy demand of residential buildings. However, little detailed information is available on how users interact with their homes. We studied the presence of users in their home, since it often leads to the use of lighting or appliances. To have a better understanding of this user behavior, we aimed to answer the following questions:
- Can we identify groups of “typical behavior” within the population?
- Do respondents with similar behavior also have similar profiles with regards to their socio-economic features (employment, age, income,…)?
To answer these questions, we used the 2005 Belgian time use survey, which contains detailed information on the whereabouts and activities of 6400 respondents from 3455 households during one weekday and one weekend day. The whereabouts of each respondent were derived from the location they added for each TUS diary entry. We distinguished between three possibilities for presence: at home and awake, at home sleeping or absent. By applying hierarchical clustering to this dataset, 7 groups of “typical behavior” were found. To study the relationship between these “typical behaviors” and a set of socio-economic features, we applied multinomial logistic regression analysis.