Household decision-making for everyday travel: a case study of walking and cycling in Lancaster (UK)

Increased walking and cycling for short journeys in urban areas has many obvious advantages yet so far gains from the promotion of more sustainable travel of this type are mostly small. This paper reports on a large research project which uses a mixed method approach to explore attitudes to and perceptions of walking and cycling, and which examines the process of household decision-making for everyday travel and the constraints that this imposes. Using survey, interview and ethnographic data it is argued that many people hold ambiguous and sometimes contradictory views of walking and cycling as effective means of everyday travel, that what they do rarely matches precisely what they believe, and that the complexity and contingency associated with everyday travel for many households is a major barrier to the use of more sustainable travel modes. It is suggested that better understanding of these processes could help to inform both future transport policy and the promotion of walking and cycling for short trips in urban areas.     

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.     

Demystifying residents' walking behaviors: Active transport in South East Queensland,Australia

This study investigates the correlates of a resident's walking behaviors and aims to shed light on mechanisms through which walking may be encouraged. The results of this investigation paint a complex and nuanced picture of the residents’ walking behaviors in South East Queensland, Australia. The results suggest that sociodemographic characteristics separately may contribute greatly to whether or not one engages in walking behaviors. Further, cumulatively these differences might be greater for some groups of residents compared to others. One of the most prominent findings of the study is that the purpose, the characteristics of the origin, and the characteristics of the destination of a trip tended to be similar in the heterogeneity they exhibit over the distribution of time spent walking. For example, pick something up, undertake work, or engage in personal business, move to or from a workplace, shop, or social place are activities that tend to be associated with walking as a main mode of transport and a higher number of walking episodes. However, these trips tended to be short.     

Questioning gender stereotypes: A case study of adolescents walking activity space in a small Central European city

BackgroundThere has been a lack of research on the gender differences in spatial attributes of adolescents' walking activity space (WAS). Moreover, while other literature shows girls walking less through city centres than boys, there are limitations concerning the absence of its precise definition and spatial delimitation. Additionally, the morphological structure of city centres, and differences in their constituent parts have not been considered.AimsIn this study, the extent to which the area is used for walking by girls and boys, as well as gender differences in spatio-temporal walking patterns during weekdays were investigated, with a special emphasis on the city centre and its constituent parts.MethodsUsing a mapping activity, self-reported spatio-temporal walking data from 304 adolescents (168 girls) aged 13–16 years were collected. To fill the gap in existing research, the study was conducted in the central ward of the small medieval historic city of Banská Bystrica (Slovakia). Attributes of WAS were calculated using Standard deviational ellipse analysis and Kernel density method. Gender differences in walking were tested by non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test for the city centre (defined by a pedestrian zone), its constituent parts (streets and squares) and for the whole ward separately. In all the cases, time of the day was considered.ResultsDespite the distinction between streets and squares in the city centre, no significant gender differences in walking were found, which is in contrast to the prevailing body of literature. Yet, a slight predominance of girls in the squares (regardless of the time of day) and boys in adjacent streets and alleys (after dark) was present. The WAS of girls was more compact compared to that of boys, with the biggest difference after dark.ConclusionsThe compact WAS of girls is in line with existing research on adults, despite the absence of traditional gender roles of wife and mother during adolescence. In addition, there is a subtle indication that a pedestrianized historic centre with a high degree of open space in squares and visually enclosed adjacent alleys may create different conditions for gender differences compared to other types of urban cores. In the future, a more in-depth examination of the degree of enclosure in public space and its influence on walking patterns is necessary.     

Exploring the link between built environment and walking choice in São Paulo city,Brazil

This study assesses the connection between the walking choice and built environment characteristics in São Paulo city, Brazil. Trips to work and school were considered because they are the most representative motives to travel in the city, corresponding to more than 70% of the trips. The traditional logit model is applied, having as the dependent variable the choice for walking and as explicative variables, the built environment and socioeconomic variables. The results indicate that, for the city of Sao Paulo, built environment variables are more relevant at the origin and the dimension most related to walking choice is diversity, probably due to socioeconomic reason. The characteristics of individuals also have significant effects, as well as age, gender and income, and this study concludes that they must be considered in the development of local public policies to encourage walking. Also, in developing countries, the D's theories might have some application limits. Apparently, the theory is applicable to a greater social equality context, and in contexts of grater social inequalities there is no influence of built environment on walking choices.     

Visions for a walking and cycling focussed urban transport system

Walking and cycling can make a considerable contribution to sustainable transport goals, building healthier and more sustainable communities and contributing to traffic and pollution reduction. There have been many national and local initiatives to promote walking and cycling, but without a long term vision and consistent strategy it is difficult to see how a significant change may be achieved. This paper presents three alternative visions for the role of walking and cycling in urban areas for the year 2030: each vision illustrates a ‘desirable’ walking- and cycling-oriented transport system against a different ‘exogenous social background’. These visions have been developed through a process of expert discussion and review and are intended to provide a stimulus for debate on the potential for and desirability of such alternative futures. Each is based on the UK and represents a substantial change to the current situation: in particular, each of the visions presents a view of a society where walking and cycling are considerably more important than is currently the case and where these modes cater for a much higher proportion of urban transport needs than at present. The visions show pictures of urban environments where dependence on motor vehicles has been reduced, in two of the visions to very low levels. The methodological approach for devising visions is informed by work on ‘utopian thinking’: a key concept underlying this approach is one of viewing the future in social constructivist terms (i.e. the future is what ‘we’, as a society, make it) rather than considering the future as something that can be ‘scientifically’ predicted by the extrapolation of current trends.     

The implementation of walking and cycling policies in British local authorities

This paper looks at walking and cycling policy implementation activities in British local authorities. It presents the main findings of a questionnaire survey of all British local transport authorities on this issue. In the absence of comparable local figures on modal share and modal trends for these two modes an index was developed from the survey for distinguishing between more and less active authorities. The paper also presents a comparison of the characteristics of the top (most active) and bottom (least active) 25% of authorities as determined through this new index. Conclusions are drawn on the most important factors influencing the implementation of policies for walking and cycling by British local authorities.     

Exploring built environment correlates of walking distance of transit egress in the Twin Cities

Most studies on walking distance to transit stops either emphasize transit access or do not distinguish transit access and egress. Furthermore, environmental correlates of walking distance may differ by stop location. Using the 2010 Transit Onboard Survey in the Minneapolis and St. Paul Metropolitan Area, this study develops four models to compare the effects of the built environment around transit stops on walking distance of transit egress. Job density is negatively correlated with walking distance, consistent in all four models. Other built environment variables exhibit different impacts by stop location. Particularly, land use mix has positive impacts on walking distance for stops outside of downtown and suburban employment centers whereas job density is more important for suburban centers. Job accessibility and the number of intersections have significant effects on stops within downtown areas but have no significant impacts on stops outside of downtown areas. The number of transit stops has opposite impacts on walking distance for stops within and outside of downtown. Moreover, the built environment tends to have a larger impact on walking distance in downtown areas than non-downtown areas. We then discuss the implications for stop area land use planning and transit stop location choice.     

Active-transport walking behavior: destinations,durations, distances

This paper fills a gap in our knowledge of active-transport (AT) walking, by presenting detailed aspects of walking behavior for a medium-sized North American city. It analyzes the frequency and length of walking episodes, categorized by origins, purposes, and destinations, and also investigates distance-decay functions for major destinations. The study employs day-after recall time diary and questionnaire data from the 2007–8 Space–Time Activity Research (STAR) survey conducted in Halifax, Canada. GPS co-ordinate data enhanced the accuracy of location information, start times, and end times of the 1790 AT walking episodes, while GIS software was used to compute a shortest-path distance between the origin and destination of each episode.Home is both the most common origin and destination for AT walks, and the most common purpose is travel-to-shop rather than travel-to-work. Most walks are to non-home locations, such as retail establishments and offices. Particularly important are restaurants and bars, grocery stores, shopping centers, banks, and other services. All major destinations show strong distance-decay effects: most walks are shorter than 600 m, and very few exceed 1200 m. The assumption employed in the walkability literature, that one should restrict the ‘neighborhood of opportunity’ to walking destinations within 1000 m of the home, is seen to be well justified. However, a planning policy focus on the walker’s home neighborhood is revealed as questionable, since the majority of walking trips do not originate from the home. The relationship between urban land-use patterns and walkability may therefore require some rethinking.     

Neighborhood walking densities: A multivariate analysis in Halifax,Canada

Neighborhood walkability is important to planners and policy makers in the public health, land use planning, and transportation fields. This research contributes to knowledge of walking behaviour by aggregating GPS-tracked walking trips as neighborhood walking densities, and investigating local characteristics affecting those densities. The study maps walking trips in urban and suburban neighborhoods of Halifax, Canada, using data from the Space-Time Activity Research (STAR) survey conducted in 2007–2008. Respondents completed a two-day time-diary, and their movements were tracked using a GPS data logger. The 1971 primary respondents recorded 5005 geo-referenced walking trips.From mapped walking tracks, walking distances were aggregated to 87 census tracts, and expressed as walking densities (per resident, per meter of road, and per developed area). Multivariate regression was used to examine which neighborhood variables and socio-demographic controls are most useful as estimators of walking densities. Contrary to much of the walkability literature, built-environment measures of road connectivity and dwelling density were found to have little estimating power. Rather, retail lot coverage ratio was the single most useful estimator, acting as a proxy to identify traditional retail shopping streets. Office and institutional land uses were also important contributory estimators (highlighting areas of dense employment), as were measures of residents' income and age.     

Neighborhood characteristics and transport walking: Exploring multiple pathways of influence using a structural equation modeling approach

In studies of neighborhood effects on transport walking, residential preferences along with other personal characteristics (walking attitude, factors that affect decision to walk for transport) are important factors to consider. However, few studies have examined relationships between neighborhood characteristics and transport walking accounting for a complex suite of personal factors. This study employed a structural equation modeling approach to examine associations between neighborhood characteristics and transport walking behaviors by accounting for residential preferences, self-assessed factors that affect decision to walk for transportation, and socio-demographics; and to examine whether neighborhood effects were modified by walking attitude and residential preferences. Based on a cross-sectional phone and mail survey of 2848 residents of New York City, Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Paul, and Winston Salem in 2011–12, we found neighborhood characteristics had significant independent associations with transport walking, even after adjusting for residential preferences and other personal factors. Neighborhood effects on transport walking did not differ significantly by walking attitude or residential preferences. Our findings highlight the importance of neighborhood effects in promoting transport walking, and suggest that while residential preferences are important factors, they do not obviate the neighborhood effects on transport walking.     

The influence of residential dissonance on physical activity and walking: evidence from the Montgomery County,MD, and Twin Cities,MN, areas

This study investigates to what extent a mismatch between residential preferences and actual residential locations is associated with residents’ physical activity and walking. The residents of Montgomery County, MD, and Twin Cities, MN, were classified into four residential subgroups, and their walking and physical activity outcomes were compared. The results showed that, for transport activity and walking outcomes, participants living in a urban location and preferring a urban environment were more likely to be active than those who lived in a suburban location and preferred a suburban environment. In a highly dense region, the influence of preferences might be overridden by the characteristics of neighborhood locations. With respect to recreation activity, no significant associations were found regarding neighborhood locations or preference for neighborhood environment.     

What is ‘neighborhood walkability’? How the built environment differently correlates with walking for different purposes and with walking on weekdays and weekends

Residential environments are associated with people's walking behavior. Transit-related, non-transit-related, and recreational walking may be differently associated with residential environments on weekdays and weekends, but empirical evidence is scarce. We therefore examined 1) to which extent these types of walking correlated with natural and built environmental characteristics of residential neighborhoods, 2) how these correlations differ for walking on weekdays and weekends, and 3) what substitution and complementarity effects between different types of walking exist. Our sample comprised 92,298 people aged ≥18 years from the pooled Dutch National Travel Survey 2010–2014. Multivariate Tobit regression models were used to assess the associations between the natural and built environment and the three types of walking (in average minutes per day). Our models accounted for cross-correlations between the walking types. Our results showed that denser residential areas encouraged both longer transit-related and non-transit-related transport walking on weekdays and weekends, whereas lower density neighborhoods were positively associated with recreational walking on weekdays. Shorter distances to public transport were only significantly associated with transit-related transport walking on weekdays. Shorter distances to daily facilities were positively associated with non-transit-related transport on weekdays. No significant associations between built environment and recreational walking were found on weekends. Additionally, some compensation effects between different types of walking seem to be at play: during weekends, recreational walking was inversely correlated with transit-related transport walking. Residential environments seem to affect walking types in a different way, suggesting that one size fits all policies might be less effective. Intervention strategies should be tailored for each walking type separately.     

Accessibility evaluations for nighttime walking and bicycling for low-income shift workers

This paper addresses an important issue related to nighttime commuting of low-income shift workers who walk and/or bike to their workplace using public transit. A shift worker is anyone who follows a work schedule that is outside of the typical daytime working hours of a business day and commute after dark - by walking or bicycling to a transit stop. However, poor visibility conditions on sidewalks and bicycle lanes often thwart safety of their walking and bicycling activities. Therefore, this paper develops two simple scores - nighttime accessibility score for walking (NASW) and nighttime accessibility for bicycling (NASB) - for evaluating nighttime infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclist. The scores consider the employment data, travel time and the physical distribution of streetlight poles along the sidewalks and bicycle lanes. Data from the city of El Paso in Texas is used to demonstrate the applicability of the two scores. Employment data from three prominent service industry sectors known to employ low-income shift workers – i) Retail Trade, ii) Accommodation and Food Services, and iii) Health Care and Social Assistance – are used for demonstration purposes. It is observed that amongst the three sectors analyzed, both NASW and NASB values are higher for regions in El Paso with low-income employment concentrations from the Health Care and Social Assistance sector. It is also observed that some prominent regions in north-east, south-east and west of El Paso need improvements in streetlight systems, sidewalks and bicycle network to facilitate walking and bicycling amongst low-income shift workers employed in Retail Trade, and Accommodation and Food Services industry sectors to access transit stops at night.     

Assessing the role of the built environment and sociodemographic characteristics on walking travel distances in Bogotá

Planning for more sustainable mobility is an important goal for public authorities worldwide. Setting better conditions for pedestrians and cyclists has been related to many social benefits, such as less pollution and congestion. Local authorities, aware of the relationship between transport and land-use, are adopting planning tools to analyze growth in cities and their impacts using multiple indicators. This paper develops an econometric trip length model that correlates socioeconomic characteristics and built environment conditions with walking travel distances in the city of Bogotá, Colombia. A log-linear regression model was estimated using information for 2015 of Bogotá's household travel survey, along with data of employment and population by block obtained from official sources. The built environment component of the model serves to evaluate the effect of land-use patterns. A proof of concept was developed using land-use information extracted from a Cellular Automata Land-Use model calibrated for the city. From its results, some factors of the built environment were estimated and two scenarios were tested in this study. One depicts the average walking distance for households surveyed in 2015, and the other takes a simulation of land-use policy in developing a new urban area as an input. The results indicate that people living in areas were the land-use mix and job/population ratio are low, tend to have longer walking distances, suggesting the need to implement special policies that reallocate some activities and encourage higher land-use mix in the urban periphery where low-income households tend to be located. The proposed method can identify the impact of land-use policies in the distances traveled by walking, facilitating the impact assessment of land-use regulations.     

Understanding the role of urban form in explaining transportation and recreational walking among children in a logistic GWR model: A spatial analysis in Istanbul,Turkey

This study aims to examine associations between urban form factors generally, and street network configuration in particular, and walking for different purposes among children in Istanbul, Turkey. Parents of randomly selected students (ages 12–16) at 20 middle schools (N = 917) completed questionnaires about their socio-economic characteristics and the frequency of their children's walking for recreational and for transportation purposes in their neighbourhood during a typical day. The environment around 400 m of participants' homes was evaluated through GIS-based parcel-level land-use data and segment-based street connectivity measures calculated using space syntax techniques. Logistic geographically weighted regression models were estimated to measure the desired associations while adjusting for socio-economic characteristics. Results demonstrate a marginal association between urban form measures and walking behaviour but only in certain peripheral parts of the city. More importantly, increased directional accessibility, which identifies the extent to which more street length is accessible within few direction changes, is associated with higher odds of recreational walking in particular areas where a strong differentiation between scales of street connectivity structure is evident such as a supergrid of primary roads with inserted organic local streets. In addition, children residing in neighbourhoods with reduced residential density and increased commercial and recreational activities are more likely to walk for transportation purposes. The findings of this study demonstrate that the one-size-fits-all approach may not effectively encourage walking. Urban areas tend to have varying qualities that need to be handled uniquely, and therefore targeted rather than blanket interventions regarding the design of neighbourhoods around schools and homes may be beneficial in supporting walking behaviour of children.     

Reducing car-use for leisure: Can organised walking groups switch from car travel to bus and train walks?

This paper deals with the significant leisure travel sector, focusing on the attitudes of organised walking groups towards public transport use. A series of interviews with walking group leaders explored the design of organised walks, and factors affecting journeys to and from start points. The themes presented suggest an overlying group culture involving mainly circular walks, reached by car. The research indicates an underlying engrained dependency on cars to reach walks and a degree of opposition to using public transport, which generally contradicts widely-held attitudes towards protecting the environment. Future research should focus more in depth on the long-term removal of psychological barriers to using public transport for leisure, and persuasive measures aimed at groups.     

Children's school commuting in the Netherlands: Does it matter how urban form is incorporated in mode choice models?

Walking and cycling to school is environmentally sustainable and increases children's physical activity. Although it is known that the built environment influences children's travel behavior, there is scant knowledge of how urban form along children's commuting routes affects walking and cycling separately, or of how to incorporate urban form exposures in transport mode choice models. This research investigated (a) the associations between children's transport mode choice and urban form correlates en route, and (b) the consequences of different urban form operationalizations (i.e., individual variables, composite measure, and principal components [PCs]). Global Positioning System devices were used to track 623 trips to and from school made by Dutch children aged 6–11 years. Urban form exposures were derived with geographic information systems, and their relationships with mode choice were tested with mixed multinomial logit models in a cross-sectional research design. Differences between the number of associated urban form variables, their magnitudes, and their significance levels were found for both walking and cycling, independent of the operationalization. Urban form was most influential for walking, whereas distance-related effects were absorbed when modeled as PCs. The highest model fit was achieved through PCs; the composite measure resulted in the lowest fit. To maximize the effectiveness of planning and health interventions, walking and cycling must be targeted separately. Policymakers should avoid “one-fits-all policies,” which are deemed to be inefficient. Because urban form affects model interpretation and fit, careful attention should be paid to how urban form is modeled, and sensitivity analyses should be performed.