The association of trip distance with walking to reach public transit: Data from the California Household Travel Survey

Among many changes potentially induced by the adoption of ridehailing, one key area of interest in transportation and urban planning research is how these services affect sustainable mobility choices, such as usage of public transit, walking, and biking modes and lower ownership of household vehicles. In this study, by using subsamples of the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) 2017 data, propensity score matching technique is applied to generate matched samples of ridehailing adopters and non-adopters from ten different core-based statistical areas in the U.S. Results from multivariable count data regression models built on the matched samples indicate that, on average, the count of public transit trips is greater for adopters compared against identical non-adopters in all ten areas. Regarding average counts of walking and biking trips, adopters tend to make more trips in most of the places, although a few exceptions are also found. However, the relationship between ridehailing adoption and count of household vehicles appears to be more complicated as adopters, on average, seem to have a lower or higher number of vehicles than identical non-adopters, depending on the area. One major limitation of this study is that, in the statistical analyses, effects of attitudinal and detailed geographic variables are not directly controlled for, which complicates causal interpretations of findings.

Download Full-text

The Who, Why, and When of Uber and other Ride-hailing Trips: An Examination of a Large Sample Household Travel Survey

10.31219/osf.io/x7ryj ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Mischa Young ◽

Steven Farber

Keyword(s):

Public Transit ◽

Drunk Driving ◽

Pronounced Effect ◽

Market Segments ◽

Large Sample ◽

Travel Survey ◽

Household Travel Survey ◽

Transportation Sector ◽

Household Travel ◽

Platform Economy

Convenience and low prices have enabled ride-hailing companies, such as Uber and Lyft, to position themselves amongst the most valuable companies within the transportation sector. They now account for the lion share of activities in the platform economy and play an increasing role within our cities. Despite this, very little is known about the type of people that use them, nor the purpose and timing of trips. In addition to this, their effect on other modes, such as taxis and public transit, remains, for the most part, widely unexplored. By comparing the socioeconomic and trip characteristics of ride-hailing users to that of other mode users, we find ride-hailing to be a wealthy younger generation phenomenon. While our results show that ride-hailing is too minute and inconsequential to influence the ridership level of other more substantial modes of travel overall, when considering specific market segments, the rise of ride-hailing corresponds to a significant decrease in taxi ridership and a rise in active modes of travel. Moreover, due to the specific age, timing, and purpose of our subsample, we believe that ride-hailing may effectively reduce drunk-driving, and are convinced that as this mode increases in importance in the future, it will have a much more pronounced effect on the level of ridership of other modes as well.

Download Full-text

Spatial variation in bicycling: a retrospective review of travel survey data from Greater Melbourne, Australia

10.31235/osf.io/78qgf ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ben Beck ◽

Meghan Winters ◽

Jason Thompson ◽

Mark Stevenson ◽

Christopher Pettit

Keyword(s):

Linear Regression ◽

Spatial Variation ◽

Survey Data ◽

Descriptive Analysis ◽

Percentage Increase ◽

Travel Survey ◽

Household Travel Survey ◽

Trip Distance ◽

Mode Share ◽

Household Travel

Understanding spatial variation in bicycling within cities is necessary to identify and address inequities. We aimed to explore spatial variation in bicycling and explore how bicycling rates vary across population sub-groups. We conducted a retrospective analysis of household travel survey data in Greater Melbourne, Australia. We present a descriptive analysis of bicycling behaviour across local government areas (LGAs; n=31), with a focus on quantifying spatial variation in the number and proportion of trips made by bike, and by age, sex and trip distance. Associations between the proportion of infrastructure that had provision for biking and the proportion of all trips made by bike were analysed using linear regression. Overall, 1.7% of all trips were made by bike. While more than half (53.2%) of all trips were less than 5km, only 2% of these trips were by bike. Across LGAs, there was considerable variation in the proportion of trips made by bike (range: 0.1% to 5.7%). Mode share by females was 35.0%, and this varied across LGAs from 0% to 49%. Tor each percentage increase in the proportion of infrastructure that had provision for biking, there was an associated 0.2% increase in the proportion of trips made by bike (coefficient = 0.20; SE = 0.05; adjusted R2 = 0.38). While we observed a low bicycle mode share, more than half of all trips were less than 5 km, demonstrating substantial opportunity to increase the number of trips taken by bike.

Download Full-text

Gender Responsiveness in Public Transit: Evidence from the 2017 US National Household Travel Survey

Journal of Urban Planning and Development ◽

10.1061/(asce)up.1943-5444.0000699 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 147 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Hui Jin ◽

Jie Yu

Keyword(s):

Public Transit ◽

Travel Survey ◽

Household Travel Survey ◽

Household Travel ◽

National Household Travel Survey

Download Full-text

Walk, Bicycle, and Transit Trips of Transit-Dependent and Choice Riders in the 2009 United States National Household Travel Survey

Journal of Physical Activity and Health ◽

10.1123/jpah.2014-0052 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 12 (8) ◽

pp. 1139-1147 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Ugo Lachapelle

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Negative Binomial ◽

Public Transit ◽

Active Transportation ◽

Vehicle Ownership ◽

Travel Survey ◽

Household Travel Survey ◽

Household Travel ◽

Transit Use ◽

National Household Travel Survey

Background:Previous research has shown that public transit use may be associated with active transportation. Access to a car may influence active transportation of transit riders.Methods:Using the 2009 United States National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), transit users ≥ 16 years old (n = 25,550) were categorized according to driver status and number of cars and drivers in the household. This typology ranged from choice transit riders (ie, “fully motorized drivers”) to transit-dependent riders (ie, “unmotorized nondriver”). Transit trips, walking trips, and bicycling trips of transit users are estimated in negative binomial models against the car availability typology.Results:Sixteen percent of participants took transit in the past month; most (86%) lived in car-owning households. As income increased, car availability also increased. Transit user groups with lower car availability were generally more likely than fully motorized drivers to take more public transit, walking, and bicycle trips. Transit riders have varying levels of vehicle access; their use of combinations of alternative modes of transportation fluctuates accordingly. Transit-dependent individuals without cars or sharing cars used active transportation more frequently than car owners.Conclusion:Policies to reduce vehicle ownership in households may enable increases in the use of alternative modes of transportation for transit users, even when cars are still owned.

Download Full-text

Does Investing in Rail Transit Benefit the Poor? A Comparative Study of Rail and Bus Travel by Low-Income Households in the California Household Travel Survey

Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board ◽

10.1177/0361198118796738 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2672 (6) ◽

pp. 11-20

Author(s):

Ryland Lu

Keyword(s):

Low Income ◽

Household Income ◽

Bus Rapid Transit ◽

Rail Transit ◽

Rapid Transit ◽

Travel Survey ◽

Household Travel Survey ◽

The Poor ◽

Household Travel ◽

Low Income Households

This paper addresses academic discourse that critiques urban rail transit projects for their regressive impacts on the poor and proposes bus funding as a more equitable investment for urban transit agencies. The author analyzed data from the 2012 California Household Travel Survey on transit trips in Los Angeles County. The author cross-tabulated data on the modal breakdown of transit trips by household income category and on the breakdown of household income associated with trips by bus and rail transit modes. The author also comparatively evaluated the speed of trips (as a ratio of miles per hour) taken by rail and by bus by low-income households in the county. The author found convincing evidence that, on average, trips low-income households made by rail transit covered a greater distance per hour than trips taken by bus transit, but that trips made on the county’s bus rapid transit services with dedicated rights-of-way had a higher mean speed than those taken by rail. Moreover, the mode and income cross-tabulations indicate that rail transit projects only partially serve low-income households’ travel needs. To the extent that equitable transit planning entails minimizing the disparities in access, both rail and bus rapid transit projects can advance social justice if they are targeted at corridors where they can serve travel demand by low-income, transit dependent households.

Download Full-text