01121604

Component

http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/160584.aspx

There has been increasing interest in the land use–transportation connection in the past decade, motivated by the possibility that design policies associated with the built environment (BE) (land use, urban form, and street network attributes) can be used to manage and shape individual traveler behavior and aggregate travel demand. It is important to determine whether the empirically observed association between BE and travel behavior–related variables is a reflection of underlying causality or whether it is attributable to the relationship between BE and the characteristics of people who choose to live in particular BEs. Literature debating the causal versus the associative nature of the relationship between the BE and travel behavior, including whether any causal effect is enough to cause a shift in travel patterns, is inconclusive. This relationship is the focus of design policies manifested in new urbanism and smart growth concepts. A review by Ewing and Cervero (2001) describes studies that have found elasticity effects of BE attributes on travel demand variables. Other recent studies have also found significant effects of BE on one or more dimensions of activity/travel behavior. However, several studies reviewed by Crane (2000) and some other works have found that BE measures have little to no impact on such dimensions of travel behavior as activity–trip frequency and nonmotorized mode use. However, because of different estimation techniques, units of analysis, empirical contexts, travel behavior dimensions, and BE characteristics and their scales used across the studies, it is difficult to compare results. Academia agrees that it is premature to draw any conclusions about the impacts of BE on activity–travel behavior. Further, two issues need to be addressed: (a) the relationship between BE and travel behavior can be complex, and (b) the true causal impact of BE on travel behavior can be assessed only if the association due to demographics-based residential sorting is controlled for. These issues are discussed in this paper.

01121602

English

0000-0002-0715-8121

pp 137-141

2008

Transportation Research Board Conference Proceedings

Innovations in Travel Demand Modeling Conference

9780309113434

Print

References

Activity choices; Built environment; Impact studies; Land use; Smart growth; Travel behavior; Travel demand

Causal factors; New urbanism; Urban form

Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

TRIS, TRB

Feb 12 2009 3:44PM

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