Predicting transit mode choice of New Jersey workers commuting to New York City from a stated preference survey

This study examines transit mode choice preferences of New Jersey commuters traveling to New York City (NYC) with the objective of assisting trans-Hudson ferry service planning on the basis of variables significantly affecting mode choice. A stated preference survey was conducted to collect data from a total of 2134 respondents who commute from northern New Jersey to NYC. A mixed multinomial logit model (MMLM) with random coefficients was used to analyze the data. The study considered the choice between four transit modes—ferry, PATH train, bus, and commuter rail—all of which can be used to cross the Hudson River to travel from New Jersey to NYC. Essential model results are presented for all four modes, but detailed results are discussed for only the ferry, PATH, and bus modes. Model results indicate that commuters' choices are affected not only by travel time and cost for the segment of the journey that crosses the Hudson River, but also reliability and comfort during that segment, number of access modes required by the journey, and travel time and cost of trips from home to stations/terminals before crossing the river. The results also show that commuters' attachment to the modes they currently use serves as a barrier to switching to other modes. The most important takeaway from this research for transit service planning is that there is a need to consider the attributes of both individual trip segments as well as entire journeys between commuters' home and work when exploring changes to transit service characteristics.     

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.     

Social satisfaction,commuting and neighborhoods

Participation in social activities and the formation of social ties, networks, and capital are crucial in shaping not only the quality of life and health of an individual, but also in creating socially sustainable communities. This paper examines to what extent the urban environment shapes an individual’s level of satisfaction with his or her social contacts. A particular emphasis is placed on isolating the role of commuting times in impeding this outcome. The city of Vienna, Austria, is used as a case study. A statistical model considers elements of an individual’s neighborhood including population density and urban centrality, as well as personal characteristics and transportation-related factors. Results indicate that those with one-way commutes of 30 min or longer result in lower levels of social satisfaction. Residing in a neighborhood with high transit level of service and car ownership positively impact social satisfaction.     

Relationships between commuting distance,frequency and telework in Finland

The average commuting distance in Finland has increased steadily during recent decades. Daily long-distance commuting especially increases the number of vehicle-kilometres travelled. The aim of this work was to determine the relationship between commuting distance and frequency. The focus was on direct impacts of telework on commuting, but the significance of second apartments close to the workplace was also estimated. The empirical analyses were based on aggregate national data concerning commuting distances and a survey providing data of 19 000 employed respondents. The results of the study indicated that telework reduced by 0.7% the total kilometres travelled in Finland. The probability of working at home increases with commuting distance, but when the commuting trip exceeds 100 km a second apartment near the workplace becomes common and has a stronger impact on commuting kilometres travelled than telework.     

Network-based spatial interpolation of commuting trajectories: application of a university commuting management project in Kyoto,Japan

This study presents an application of network-based spatial interpolation of student commuting trajectories from a series of origin–destination trip datasets. In particular, we incorporated multimodal public transportation networks, including bus networks, to estimate the student commuting routes. The student samples for this study were collected from an online travel diary survey conducted by Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. The ArcGIS Network Analyst was used to construct spatial network datasets and reconstruct trajectories from the origin–destination trip dataset. In addition, line densities of estimated trajectories were calculated and displayed on maps for geovisualization. These maps helped us understand the precise locations of congestion and spatial patterns of student commuting, unlike linear representations of people’s movements that connect origins and destinations. Our study also showed that estimated trajectories can simulate quantitative impacts on travel time by promoting walking or the use of public transportation.     

Active commuting in a university setting: Assessing commuting habits and potential for modal change

This paper describes the results of an online survey that examined commuting patterns, potential for change and barriers and motivators affecting transport decisions in a University population (n=1040 students, n=1170 staff). Overall, 21.5% of staff and 46.8% of students at The University of Western Australia regularly used active modes, and potentially an additional 30% of staff and students would switch to active modes. The results suggested that reducing barriers to using active modes, in particular reducing actual and perceived travel time by bus and bicycle would have the greatest impact on commuting patterns. Some policy applications appeared to hold particular promise, including an implementation of a subsidised public transport pass (U-Pass), increased student housing on or near campus, increased cost of parking, and improved bus services and cycle networks.     

Job growth,accessibility, and changing commuting burden of employment centres in Melbourne

How transport and employment agglomeration enhance urban productivity is a fundamental problem for many cities. Internationally, there has been a great deal of interest in the effect of employment concentration on urban productivity, but very few studies have examined its effect on worker commuting burdens and transport costs. This paper aims to advance international knowledge by measuring job growth and costs of labour market access between 2011 and 2016 for employment centres (EC) in Melbourne, Australia. A comprehensive transport cost model is used that incorporates detailed transport costs and travel times associated with transport modes. By tracking job growth and changes in worker commuting burdens, this paper distinguishes ‘high-cost’ ECs from ‘low-cost’ ECs, for their respective labour pools, and identifies which ECs offer opportunities for better transport outcomes. The results show that well-planned public transport (PT) systems and residential development, coupled with walking and cycle networks, are important features of ECs experiencing lower commuting burdens. Drawing upon the conclusions, this research recommends more effective approaches by governments to foster effective investments in urban infrastructure and discusses how broader policy and investment decisions can align to optimise employment agglomeration and minimise negative transport impacts.     

The jobs-housing relationship and commuting in Guangzhou,China: Hukou and dual structure

Jobs-housing relations and commuting have been a concern of academics and policy makers alike. Various hypotheses from the West have been tested in leading Chinese metropolises, but so far no attention has been paid to the role of hukou, a rather unique Chinese institution causing the emergence of invisible walls within cities. To address this deficiency, the present paper places hukou at the forefront in its analysis of commuting in Guangzhou and reveals that in comparison with hukou holders, non-hukou residents tend to have more balanced jobs-housing relationship, rely less on motorized transport, and spend less time on commuting than hukou holders. Furthermore, some variables have influence on commuting time for one hukou type but not the other; some other variables that have influence on both groups differ systematically in their effects.     

Urban structure,commuting burden,and employment status of labour forces in an Australian city

Understanding the productivity effects of worker commuting burdens is essential for appraisals of urban planning and investment strategies designed to improve urban productivity. However, the extant urban planning literature lacks systematic analysis of the influence of commuting costs on labour mobility, employment engagement, and productivity. This paper provides the first ever detailed analysis of mobility and commuting burdens for workers in a range of industries and occupational groups in Melbourne, Australia. Linking commuting burdens and measures of employment status in urban areas, this paper finds that the labour force in areas experiencing high commuting burdens exhibit lower levels of engagement with job markets. This research further reveals important variations in such relationships across diverse industry and occupation groups. The results provide urban policy makers with better information about urban transport and employment patterns, thus enabling them to investigate alternative approaches to investing in housing and transport infrastructure to reduce worker commuting burdens and improve economic performance.     

Allocation of tasks,arrangement of working hours and commuting in different Norwegian households

Weekly working hours and commuting distance can be seen as indicators of equality/inequality between spouses. Traditionally, it is women who adjust their career more readily to meeting family obligations. In an era with a focus on equality between the genders in regard to both education and paid work, it is obvious to think of equality regarding working hours as well, and of distance to and from work. In this study we utilized data from the Norwegian Travel Survey of 2009 to examine the results of adjustments made in weekly working hours and commuting distance in families in which both husband and wife are in paid work. These indicate that the family situation is significant, and that, among other things, children in a family does not lead to any reduction in men’s working hours or commuting distance.Living in the periphery of large cities is disadvantageous for women who want to work full time, while living within a city tends to be to their advantageous in this regard. The results from the analysis of commuting distance show that women do not commute as far as men in comparable groups (working hours, family type, education, place of living, income, access to a car and occupation) and that the policy of regional enlargement is far from gender neutral. So long as it is women who adjust their labour market participation – both temporal and spatial – an enlargement of the regional/geographical labour market resulting potentially in longer commuting distances will primarily favour those who have the possibility to travel irrespectively of family situation, i.e. men, not women.     

Determinants of extreme commuting. Evidence from Brussels,Geneva and Lyon

Daily travel time has increased in Europe during the last decade. Some commuters show unusual commuting behaviours, so-called extreme commuting, which is defined as spending more than 100 min commuting a day. This paper aims to explain these commuting patterns from the point of view of the extreme commuters themselves. Based on a qualitative survey conducted in three European regions - Lyon, Brussels and Geneva - among individuals that spend at least two hours a day commuting, this study shows that extreme commuting is determined by complex interplay between the individual's working and private life and issues related to travel. Among our sample, the choice of public transportation modes assisted long-duration commuting. Our results also highlight the paradox that rapid transportation networks are used intensively to allow people to remain rooted — both residentially and socially.     

Bikesharing Trip Patterns in New York City: Associations with Land Use,Subways, and Bicycle Lanes

As bikesharing systems have proliferated, few studies have examined the trips made on these systems. In this paper, we examine trips between origin-destination pairs during three months in 2015 on New York City’s Citi Bike system. Findings suggest considerable variation across user types, across months, and across times of day. Principal findings indicate that bikesharing is used for transit access and egress during rush hours, and that stations located along the same high-quality bicycle route see far more trips than do other station pairs. Casual users complement subscribers’ usage by using bicycles more frequently during midday and the evening, and between areas characterized by nearby recreational land uses. Loop trips to and from the same station also occur and are likely recreational trips. The data analyzed is essentially a form of “big data.” That is, large data sets that are ubiquitously collected. The analysis suggests that in this case, “big data” that lacks the socio-economic data commonly collected and used in travel analysis can provide useful insights to planners.     

A joint analysis of residential location,work location and commuting mode choices in Hanoi,Vietnam

The influence of land use policy on people's residential and travel choices may be overestimated because of self-selection effects. In the context of commuting, neighborhood and travel preferences may induce self-selection effects in choices about residential location, work location, and commuting mode. Presumably, such self-selection effects may vary across different job markets. To date, however, no study has been done in developing countries. Therefore, this study aims to fill this research gap by using data collected in Hanoi, Vietnam. A joint model with the above three choices is built by incorporating self-selection effects, where effects of land use attributes are emphasized. Choices of labor-intensive workers (11,344) and knowledge-intensive workers (12,360) are compared. The statistical significance of multiple self-selection effects is confirmed, which suggests that the joint estimation of the above three choices is a useful approach. As for the magnitude of influence of self-selection effects, self-selection seems to be more influential in knowledge-intensive workers' residential location and work location choices. As for land use attributes, different types of households, and labor-intensive and knowledge-intensive workers show different responses to different types of land in location choices (especially the work location choice). Effects of land use diversity and population density on the commuting mode choice are mixed. Additionally, the centralization of knowledge-intensive employment and decentralization of labor-intensive employment are captured. These findings may be useful for city planners in Hanoi in designing land use patterns in the future in order to keep knowledge-intensive workers working and living close together.     

Day-to-day variation in excess commuting: An exploratory study of Brisbane,Australia

Commuting patterns where most if not all 'trips are optimised relative to a given distribution of jobs and housing can result in personal and socio-economic benefits. Excess commuting indicators provide useful information for academics and policy analysts to evaluate how the actual commuting pattern deviates from an optimal pattern where commuting costs are minimised. While actual commuting patterns vary from day-to-day, academic researchers have yet to quantify the temporal variation in these indicators over short time periods. This may be due to the lack of available longitudinal data as input for excess commuting indicators. This study shows that new, open and/or big data (NOBD) (e.g. smartcard data) can be exploited to serve as the input for such analysis. In this regard, our study uses half a year's worth of smartcard data from Brisbane, Australia to first derive/aggregate origins and destinations by small areas of the probable commuting trips by transit on all 122 weekdays over the study period. The study quantifies the day-to-day variation in excess commuting indicators for these trips and finds that excess commuting indicators vary considerably from one day to the next. Nevertheless, daily variations occur within a relatively consistent range which can be planned for. Our research suggests that more conscious and systematic utilisation of NOBD could change how commuting flows in cities are quantified, monitored and planned. In addition, with NOBD, we can more efficiently detect daily outliers in commuting patterns.     

Catalysts and magnets: Built environment and bicycle commuting

What effects do bicycle infrastructure and the built environment have on people’s decisions to commute by bicycle? While many studies have considered this question, commonly employed methodologies fail to address the unique statistical challenge of modeling modes with small mode shares. Additionally, personal characteristics that are not adequately accounted for may lead to overestimation of built environment impacts.This study addresses these two key issues by using an ordered probit Heckman selection model to jointly estimate participation in and frequency of commuting by bicycle, controlling for demographics, residential preferences, and travel attitudes. The findings suggest a strong influence of attitudinal factors, with modest contributions of bicycle accessibility. Bicycle lanes act as “magnets” to attract bicyclists to a neighborhood, rather than being the “catalyst” that encourages non-bikers to shift modes. The results have implications for planners and policymakers attempting to increase bicycling mode share via the strategic infrastructure development.     

Culture and the cross-country differences in the gender commuting gap

This paper explores the role of the gender equality culture in cross-country gender commuting gap differences. To avoid inter-relationships between culture, institutions, and economic conditions in a simple cross-country analysis, we adopt the epidemiological approach. We merge data from the American Time Use Survey for the years 2006–2019 on early-arrival first-generation immigrants and second-generation Americans (U.S.-born children of immigrants) living in the United States with their corresponding annual country of ancestry's Gender Gap Index (GGI). Because all these individuals (with different cultural backgrounds) have grown up under the same laws, institutions, and economic conditions in the US, the gender differences among them in the time devoted to commuting to/from work can be interpreted as evidence of the existence of a cultural impact. Our results show that a culture with more gender equality in the country of ancestry may reduce the gender commuting gap of parents. Specifically, an increase of one standard deviation in the GGI (cultural proxy) increases women's daily commuting time relative to that of men by almost 6 min, a sizeable effect representing 26% of the standard deviation in the gender commuting gap across countries of ancestry. A supplementary analysis provides possible mechanisms through which culture operates and is transmitted. Our results are robust to the use of different subsamples, geographical controls, and selection into employment and telework.     

Excess commuting: a critical review and comparative analysis of concepts,indices, and policy implications

The last three decades have witnessed substantial growth in the literature on excess commuting. Researchers have proposed and applied a number of commuting benchmarks and excess commuting indices that aim to evaluate the commuting efficiency and jobs-housing balance of cities. A comprehensive review and comparative evaluation of the proposed metrics in terms of their ability to capture the intended phenomena, while controlling for the other general characteristics of cities, has yet to be performed. This article attempts to fill this gap by examining four commuting benchmarks (minimum commute, maximum commute, random commute, and proportionally matched commute) and five excess commuting indices (excess commute, commuting potential utilized, commuting economy, normalized commuting economy, and effort). Our conceptual analysis of the indices is complemented with a comparative empirical analysis of commuting in thirty Canadian cities. We explore relationships between the indices and point out the strengths and limitations of each. The findings suggest that no single index can adequately capture the commuting performance of an urban area, while each index can be employed to address a specific policy question. Used together, the indices can provide a reasonably good understanding of urban form and commuting behavior.