01506568

Component

The authors compare the travel behavior of urban versus suburban baby boomers in the Boston metropolitan area. Using propensity score matching to attempt to control for self-selection and data from two surveys implemented in 2008 and 2010, they find that the urban boomers tend to be less automobile-dependent than suburban baby boomers. Urban baby boomers also make more recreational non-motorized transport (NMT), social, utilitarian and transit commute trips. Most of these differences seem to be primarily a result of the urban setting, not the particular preferences of boomers living in urban settings. The authors find very small self-selection effects on automobile commuting, recreational NMT, and utilitarian trips: one to seven percent of observed influence. They also find some evidence that Baby Boomers' preference for social activities tends to be mismatched to their environments - suburban boomers want more social opportunities than their settings enable. For public transport, they find a relatively large self-selection effect, 0.43 percent of observed influence, suggesting a transit-oriented boomer market segment exists.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB10 Traveler Behavior and Values.

01503729

14-1548

English

18p

2014

Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Maps; References; Tables

Age groups; Demographics; Mobility; Residential location; Suburbs; Travel behavior; Urban travel

Baby boomer generation

Boston (Massachusetts)

Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2014 Paper #14-1548

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 27 2014 2:34PM