Heterogeneous effects of neighborhood type on commute mode choice: An exploration of residential dissonance in the Twin Cities

Many studies have measured residential and travel preferences to address residential self-selection and they often focused on the average or independent effect of the built environment on travel behavior. However, individuals' behavioral responses to built environment interventions may vary by their different tastes. Using the 2011 data from the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area, this study examines the influences of neighborhood type, travel attitudes, and their interaction terms on commute mode choice. The interactions between neighborhood type and travel attitudes have no significant impact on driving commute frequency whereas the effects of neighborhood type on the propensity for transit commute differ by transit preference. Specifically, urban consonants (including those in LRT neighborhoods) have the highest propensity for transit commute, followed by suburban dissonants, urban dissonants, and then suburban consonants. Therefore, individuals' heterogeneous responses to built environment elements should be taken into account in future research and in the design of land use and transportation policies aiming to shape urban travel.     

Residence,workplace and commute: Interrelated spatial choices of knowledge workers in the metropolitan region of Munich

Knowledge workers (KW), as important individual agents who embody, exchange, create and exploit knowledge, contribute to regional competitiveness and growth. To attract and retain them in a region, it is necessary to have a better understanding of their fundamental spatially-related behaviors including residence, workplace, and commute choices. In this study, we depart from a perspective of knowledge typology (analytical-synthetic-symbolic knowledge base) to investigate the heterogeneity of knowledge workers' residence, workplace, and commute choices. The case study was conducted in the metropolitan region of Munich. Various types of data are integrated: structural statistical and individually-based web-survey data; individuals' actual choices and their assessment of importance for each criterion; positional and relational data. We find that symbolic Advanced-Producer-Services (APS) workers tend to reside in central areas and use public transport or active modes to commute. In contrast, synthetic high-tech workers are found in relatively peripheral areas and depend more on cars to reach their workplaces. The spatially-related choices of analytical high-tech and synthetic-APS workers are positioned in between symbolic APS-workers and synthetic high-tech workers. We reach three conclusions: Firstly, the features of the knowledge base are evident in the spatial choices of knowledge workers. Secondly, there is a consistency of characteristics between interrelated spaces surrounding residence, workplace, as well as along the commute path of knowledge workers. Lastly, while the influence of the knowledge base has to be weighed against socio-demographic factors, different groups of knowledge workers clearly display distinct choices of residential location and commute mode. These conclusions may provide insights for urban planners and policy-makers regarding the attraction and retention of knowledge workers.     

Verkehrsverbund: The evolution and spread of fully integrated regional public transport in Germany,Austria, and Switzerland

Throughout the world, urban areas have been rapidly expanding, exacerbating the problem of many public transport (PT) operators providing service over different governmental jurisdictions. Over the past five decades, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have successfully implemented regional PT associations (called Verkehrsverbund or VV), which integrate services, fares, and ticketing while coordinating public transport planning, marketing, and customer information throughout metropolitan areas, and in some cases, entire states. A key difference between VVs and other forms of regional PT coordination is the collaboration and mutual consultation of government jurisdictions and PT providers in all decision-making. This article examines the origins of VVs, their spread to 13 German, Austrian, and Swiss metropolitan areas from 1967 to 1990, and their subsequent spread to 58 additional metropolitan areas from 1991 to 2017, now serving 85% of Germany's and 100% of Austria's population. The VV model has spread quickly because it is adaptable to the different degrees and types of integration needed in different situations. Most of the article focuses on six case studies of the largest VVs: Hamburg (opened in 1967), Munich (1971), Rhine-Ruhr (1980), Vienna (1984), Zurich (1990), and Berlin-Brandenburg (1999). Since 1990, all six of those VVs have increased the quality and quantity of service, attracted more passengers, and reduced the percentage of costs covered by subsidies. By improving PT throughout metropolitan areas, VVs provide an attractive alternative to the private car, helping to explain why the car mode share of trips has fallen since 1990 in all of the case studies.     

Disability,wages, and commuting in New York

In the U.S., substantial employment and wage gaps persist between workers with and without disabilities. A lack of accessible transportation is often cited as a barrier to employment in higher wage jobs for people with disabilities, but little is known about the intraurban commuting patterns of employed people with disabilities in relation to their wage earnings. Our study compares wages and commute times between workers with and without disabilities in the New York metropolitan region and identifies the intraurban zones where residents experience higher inequities in wage earnings and commute times. We obtained our data from the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) of the American Community Survey (ACS) for the 2008–2012 time period. We used linear mixed-effects models and generated separate models with log hourly wage or one-way commute time as the dependent variable. We find significant differences in wages and commute times between workers with and without disabilities at the scale of the metropolitan region as well as by intraurban zone. At the metropolitan scale, disabled workers earn 16.6% less and commute one minute longer on average than non-disabled workers. High commute and wage inequalities converge in the center, where workers with disabilities are more likely to use public transit, earn 17.1% less, and travel nearly four minutes longer on average than workers without disabilities. These results suggest that transport options are less accessible and slower for disabled workers than they are for non-disabled workers. Our findings indicate a need for more accessible and quicker forms of transportation in the center along with an increased availability of centrally located and affordable housing to reduce the disability gap in wages and commute times. We also find that workers with disabilities generally seek higher wages in exchange for longer commute times, but the results differ by race/ethnicity and gender. Compared to white men, minority workers earn much less, and white and Hispanic women have significantly shorter commute times. Our findings offer new geographic insights on how having a disability can influence wage earnings and commute times for workers in different intraurban zones in the New York metropolitan region.     

Commute mode diversity and public health: A multivariate analysis of 148 US cities

Urban sprawl has a negative relationship with regional health outcomes, such as high obesity and chronic diseases related to physical inactivity. At the same time, literature has shown that walkable built environments are connected to lower obesity rates and increased physical activity. Less understood is the association of modal diversity with those health outcomes. This research studies a range of public health outcomes to determine their associations with commute mode diversity. Researchers adapted the methodology of urban sociologists Harvey Molotch and Richard Appelbaum to explore twelve different health measures in 148 US counties and their metropolitan statistical areas. The test measure is the percentage of commuters who use some means other than a single-occupant vehicle (SOV). The percentage of such commuters ranges from as low as 11% in Houston County, Alabama to as high as 36% in Honolulu County, Hawaii. Using bivariate and multivariate analyses, we found better health outcomes in counties and metropolitan areas that have fewer workers commuting by SOV. These findings underscore the positive impact of sustainable transportation policies on community health and open up a new direction for public health research and the built environment.     

Commute travel and its effect on housing tenure choice of males and females living in the urban and rural areas of Bangalore city in India

This study attempts to identify various factors influencing individual’s choice of housing tenure with emphasis on the effect of commute trips on that choice. It also focuses on the sensitivity to various factors affecting the housing tenure choice between males and females of urban and rural areas. The study is based on both exploratory analysis and estimation of statistical models using a Household Travel Survey data collected for Bangalore Metropolitan Region in year 2010. The results indicate the role of both the land use attributes and commute travel characteristics on tenure choice and the behavioural difference between males and females. The sensitivity to various attributes is also observed to be varying between the individuals living in the urban and rural areas of the city. The finding that private mode use for commuting governs the housing tenure choice of individuals suggests that promotion of urban-transport policies such as Transit Oriented Development may be an effective strategy to curb the issues related to energy consumption and emission.     

Modeling different penetration rates of eco-driving in urban areas: Impacts on traffic flow and emissions

Climate change and air quality are two main environmental challenges in metropolitan areas. As road transportation is one of the main contributors, public administrations are facing these problems with a number of complementary policy measures: shift to cleaner modes, new fuels and vehicle technologies, demand management, and the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) applied to transportation. Eco-driving is one of the measures that present large fuel savings at individual level. Although these savings are well documented in the literature, few studies focus on how eco-drivers driving patterns affect the surrounding vehicles and the traffic in general, and more particularly what would be the impact when the number of eco-drivers grows. Using a traffic microsimulation tool, four models in urban context have been built, corresponding to the different types of urban roads. Both the base-case and the parameters setting to simulate eco-driving have been calibrated with real data collected through floating vehicles performing the trips with normal and eco behaviors. In total, 72 scenarios were simulated, varying the type of road, traffic demand, and the percentage of eco-drivers. Then, the CO₂ and NO_x emissions have been estimated through a microscopic emission model. The results show that in scenarios with low or medium demand levels and increasing number of eco-drivers, the effects are positive in terms of emissions. On the other side, with high percentage of eco-drivers and high traffic demand, the emissions rise. Higher headways and smooth acceleration and decelerations increase congestion, producing higher emissions globally.     

Decomposing excess commuting: a Monte Carlo simulation approach

Excess or wasteful commuting is measured as the proportion of actual commute that is over minimum (optimal) commute when assuming that people could freely swap their homes and jobs in a city. Studies usually rely on survey data to define actual commute, and measure the optimal commute at an aggregate zonal level by Linear Programming (LP). Travel time from a survey could include reporting errors and respondents might not be representative of the areas they reside; and the derived optimal commute at an aggregate areal level is also subject to the zonal effect. Both may bias the estimate of excess commuting. Based on the 2006–2010 Census for Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) data in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, this research uses a Monte Carlo approach to simulate individual resident workers and individual jobs within census tracts, estimate commute distance and time from journey-to-work trips, and define the optimal commute based on simulated individual locations. Findings indicate that both reporting errors and the use of aggregate zonal data contribute to miscalculation of excess commuting.     

Accessibility and Transit-Oriented Development in European metropolitan areas

This study investigates how urban form is related to accessibility. In particular, it explores the relationship between Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) and rail-based accessibility in a metropolitan area. The following overarching questions are addressed: Does a TOD-informed urban spatial structure correlate with high rail based accessibility? Which features of TOD are correlated to rail-based accessibility? These questions are answered through a comparative analysis of six metropolitan areas in Europe. The “TOD degree”, operationalized as the extent to which urban development is concentrated along rail corridors and stations, is correlated with a cumulative opportunity measure of rail-based accessibility to jobs and inhabitants.The comparison demonstrates that rail-based accessibility is higher in urban areas where inhabitants and jobs are more concentrated around the railway network and in lesser measure in urban areas with higher values of network connectivity. No correlation is found between rail-based accessibility and average densities of inhabitants and jobs.     

Estimating pedestrian and cyclist activity at the neighborhood scale

In most parts of the U.S., data on bicycle and pedestrian activity at the neighborhood scale are sparse or non-existent, despite the importance of such data for local planning. Here, a simple small-area estimation method is used to pair travel survey with land use and census data to estimate cyclist and pedestrian activity for census tracts in the state of California. This method is an improvement on fixed per-capita estimates of activity based only on regional or statewide averages. These activity estimates are then used to calculate the intensity of road use by cyclists and pedestrians, and crash rates for these road users. For California, the intensity of pedestrian and cyclist road use in urban census tracts is double that found in suburban tracts, while use in suburban tracts is an order of magnitude greater than that found in rural tracts. Per-capita estimates would suggest substantially smaller differences between neighborhood types. On the safety side, although non-severe crashes involving cyclists and pedestrians are much more likely in more urban areas, severe crash rates for the non-motorized modes exhibit no clear spatial pattern. The method used is simple and easily replicable, potentially filling a critical need for bicycle and pedestrian planners.     

Commute minimization in the Greater Toronto Area: applying a modified excess commute

Following the excess commuting literature, we develop a benchmark measure of the minimum required commute, conditional on the layout of the specific urban area. Through segmentation of the commuters into those that can be relocated and those that cannot, we try to explain the difference between the minimum required and actual commute. To determine the segmentation of the commuters we make use of a micro-level explanatory model of commuting distance. This micro-level modeling exercise informs a number of excess commuting simulations that address the contribution of certain groups of commuters to total commuting. Findings from the micro-analysis reaffirm similar findings in the literature for other urban areas. The simulation exercise suggests that varied levels of commute savings may result from policy directed at particular commuter groups.     

Tourist use of public transport at destinations – a review

Understanding tourists' use of public transport (PT) at the destination is important for sustainable mobility, destination satisfaction, PT management and destination management. This paper provides an overview of research in PT and tourism since 2000. The review identifies main topics and issues including how PT is used for tourism purposes in different contexts. It also recommends policies and strategies for a modal shift to PT in tourism, and identifies potential areas for future research. The review indicates that there are differences in the level of PT use by visitors between rural and urban destinations. PT is often not favoured by visitors in remote areas, although the situation is more promising in urban destinations. However, the overall potential of PT as an alternative mode for travelling is unclear, given tourist motivations and behaviours, and provision of visitor-oriented PT services including the need for appropriate communication and social marketing strategies.     

Are we keeping up? Accessibility,equity and air quality in regional planning

Many US metropolitan areas have undergone dramatic shifts in socioeconomic organization.. As urban areas gentrify, many low-income residents and communities of color have transitioned towards the exurban periphery. These suburban neighborhoods tend to have fewer employment opportunities and are fairly disconnected from public transportation networks serving the urban core. Using regional transportation plans (RTPs) for three California MPOs, we show that the transportation accessibility and environmental health issues affecting these exurban communities are unique and inadequately captured by the MPOs' current equity metrics. MPOs performance evaluation is regional and achieving equity within the urban core communities will not address emerging equity, accessibility and air quality concerns for exurban communities. With a brief history and a focused case study of RTPs for the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Fresno, we examine how air pollution, equity, and transportation interact in three different types of 21st century cities. We find that when allocating limited transportation funds, California metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) prioritize the improvement of existing public transportation in urban core areas over expansion of transit networks towards disconnected exurbs. This approach is an effective way to reduce vehicle miles traveled (and thus, air pollution) at the regional level due to high population concentrations in urban cores. However, this approach also concentrates the air quality benefits of VMT reduction in these same urban core areas. Exurban residents' on-road and near-road exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution (TRAP) will not be reduced by improving public transit within the urban core. We argue that although these suburban and exurban communities are a small percentage of the regional population, they have a right to share in the benefits of transportation investments, particularly given the historical and ongoing patterns of displacement and economic exclusion from urban core areas.     

Do firms flee traffic congestion?

Much transport policy aims to use congestion relief measures to support economic activity, but planners know relatively little about how individual firms respond to traffic congestion. This study helps fill this gap by exploring individual firm location responses to traffic congestion within the Philadelphia metropolitan area between 2003 and 2007. This study tests whether existing, basic-industry firms flee congested areas to minimize exposure to the congestion externality. Relocation responses are estimated and compared for five separate industries (finance and insurance, health care, manufacturing, real estate and leasing, and wholesale trade) using firm-level data collected by InfoUSA and obtained from ESRI. Results suggest that congestion influences firm location decisions, but that the scale of congestion is important. While firms appear to relocate out of areas with high regionally-scaled congestion, areas with high local congestion are associated with a lower likelihood of relocating. In sum, while regional congestion appears to be a drag, local congestion appears to function as an amenity – implying that there is truth in the competing notions among engineers and economists of congestion as a diseconomy and among urban designers of congestion as an amenity.     

Did highways cause the urban polycentric spatial structure in the Shanghai metropolitan area?

Based on LandScan population data, land use data and highway data for the Shanghai metropolitan area from 2000 to 2015, this paper studies the impact of highways on the formation of built-up areas and subcenters to explain the emergence of the urban polycentric spatial structure. The findings are as follows. (1) The dispersion of the population strengthens the polycentric spatial structure of the Shanghai metropolitan area. From 2000 to 2015, the number of subcenters increased from 72 to 118, and their area expanded from 1347 km² to 3469 km². In addition, the main centers lost 12.7% of the population share, while the subcenters gained 12.47% of the population share. (2) Highways play a significant role in promoting urban spatial expansion and the formation of subcenters in the Shanghai metropolitan area. With every 1% decrease in distance to the nearest highway, the probability of an undeveloped area becoming a built-up area increases by 1.53–6.74%, and the probability of a built-up area becoming a subcenter increases by 11.93–20.92%. The results are robust to a series of supplementary tests, such as the replacement of explained variables or explanatory variables and the adoption of instrumental variables. (3) The Chinese government plays an important role in urban polycentric spatial development. New district and development zone policies represent two important mechanisms of highways affecting urban polycentric spatial development.     

The effect of urban growth on commuting patterns in Christchurch,New Zealand

The rising demand for residential development in the urban fringe of Christchurch, New Zealand, has led to an increase in car use and lengthening journeys, both of which have serious environmental implications. In light of this, the relationship between urban form and transport was investigated in Christchurch through the analysis of journey to work data from 1991 and 2001. Low density suburban areas were found to generate and receive the highest percentages of car trips in both 1991 and 2001. It was also found that the majority of work-trips involved suburb-to-suburb commuting, rather than to the centre of the city. Average trip length did not increase substantially over this period, although increases were apparent in separate modes. Multivariate regression analysis established that the key variable determining modal split and trip length was the distance the residence was located from the central business district. Results were similar when compared to larger cities elsewhere.     

Auditing street walkability and associated social inequalities for planning implications

Transport planning is gradually shifting targets towards modifying the pedestrian streetscapes that favor walking and enhance urban sustainability. We cannot be optimistic about walkability on condition that walkable streets are not evenly distributed within urban settings. Auditing the street walkability and associated social inequalities in developing countries should provide critical implications for transport planning. This paper identifies the most common indicators in existing indicator classification frameworks based on word frequency; and then establishes an indicator classification system (connectivity, accessibility, suitability, serviceability, and perceptibility) through expert panel evaluation for auditing street walkability in China. Using a case of Hangzhou metropolitan area, a set of 13 indicators are first selected by referring to the established indicator classification system and then aggregated into an integrated walkability index (IWI) through the catastrophe theory (CT) model after appropriate data treatment (standardization, normalization and correlation calculation). Camera signaling data are employed to validate the developed IWI. Results show that IWI is efficient to audit street walkability. IWI presents great heterogeneity at segment level. In general, higher walkability is observed in streets across the central and western areas. Walkability profiles of the segments are further produced by the clustering approach and the categorized groups can inform more targeted planning options. Spatial regression is finally utilized to quantify the associations between community socio-demographics and neighborhood IWI at two levels. We discover that lower neighborhood walkability would be observed in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. These results suggest that significant social inequalities in street walkability should exist across the communities within Hangzhou metropolitan area. The developed IWI not only brings a standardized measurement of street walkability in the field of transport planning, but also paves the way for addressing the social inequalities in street design across various jurisdictions.     

Relative logistics sprawl: Measuring changes in the relative distribution from warehouses to logistics businesses and the general population

The logistics sprawl – warehousing and distribution centers relocating farther away from central urban areas to the urban periphery – has been widely examined in multiple global trade gateways. The spatial shifts have been attributed to the systematic and geographic restructuring of goods production and distribution systems at the global scale. More recently, growing online shopping sales and demand for instant delivery have put tremendous pressure on online retail businesses to locate order fulfillment centers in urban areas with direct access to the consumer markets. Has the trend of sprawling warehouses reversed? Have warehouses been relocating closer to consumer demand? In this research, I use a relative distribution measure to quantify the spatial distribution of warehouses relative to the logistics sector, the goods movement sector, and the general population over time. The main data source is ZIP Code Business Patterns from 2003 to 2016 with the study area of the 64 largest US metropolitan areas. In 2016, warehouses were most closely distributed relative to logistics sectors (38.6 km), followed by goods movement sectors (41.2 km), and population (43.5 km). From 2003 to 2016, the distance between warehouses and related businesses has increased, but the extent varies with respect to metropolitan and warehouse size. The trend of increasing relative distance from warehouses to related businesses stopped since the economic recession in 2008. Relative distribution measures are significantly correlated with internal ground shipment ton-kilometers but only in large trade gateways.     

Residential dissonance and walking for transport

The concept of residential dissonance contextualizes the combined impact of built environment and individual travel and land-use preferences on travel behavior. A limited number of studies have explored the effect of residential dissonance specifically on walking. However, evidence from the active travel literature suggests that the environmental characteristics associated with diverse active travel modes differ to some extent. This study addresses residential dissonance in a framework specific for walking outcomes, as the applied neighborhood boundaries, residential preferences and the observed built environment were operationalized with measures related to walking for transport. SoftGIS, a public participatory GIS method allowing the mapping of frequently visited destinations was used to survey the daily walking behavior of 772 respondents aged 25–40 years living in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland. Ordinal logistic regression analyses were used to assess the adjusted odds of walking a high share of estimated monthly trips and travel distance. The identified residential dissonance groups were found to have significant associations with the walking outcomes. Associations between the observed neighborhood walkability and the walking outcomes varied by trip purpose, being more consistent with walking to utilitarian than to recreational destinations. Overall, the results support views on the interconnectedness of individual attitudes and the built environment in facilitating walking for transport.