Problems of the carless in the United Kingdom and the United States

An examination of current population statistics shows that in the U.S. more than half of the population is without immediate access to a car, and in the U.K. more than three-fifths of the population is without access to a car. This phenomenon has been accentuated by national investment in both countries in major highway programs. The term carless refers to more than just households that own no cars. It extends, in households with cars to those without licenses (old and young), the handicapped, and even the licensed drivers who have no access to the family car when it is in use elsewhere (e.g. at work). The most severely effected are those in urban areas and especially the urban poor. Transportation expenses are limited for the poor when other family expenditures (food, shelter) take a high priority. Once the work trip has been satisfied, money for other trips, for the poor, is not always available. One solution to cost-free travel is pedestrianism (walking), but this too is difficult in urban areas where the pedestrian has been overlooked in favor of the car. Solutions to problems of the carless include dial-a-ride, better public transit, and better design of urban form.     

The influence of individuals’ environmental attitudes and urban design features on their travel patterns in sustainable neighborhoods in the UK

This paper explores the influence of individuals’ environmental attitudes and urban design features on travel behavior, including mode choice. It uses data from residents of 13 new neighborhood UK developments designed to support sustainable travel. It is found that almost all respondents were concerned about environmental issues, but their views did not necessarily ‘match’ their travel behavior. Individuals’ environmental concerns only had a strong relationship with walking within and near their neighborhood, but not with cycling or public transport use. Residents’ car availability reduced public transport trips, walking and cycling. The influence of urban design features on travel behaviors was mixed, higher incidences of walking in denser, mixed and more permeable developments were not found and nor did residents own fewer cars than the population as a whole. Residents did, however, make more sustainable commuting trips than the population in general. Sustainable modes of travel were related to urban design features including secured bike storage, high connectivity of the neighborhoods to the nearby area, natural surveillance, high quality public realm and traffic calming. Likewise the provision of facilities within and nearby the development encouraged high levels of walking.     

Persistence of walking in Chile: lessons for urban sustainability

ABSTRACT

An extensive body of work from the urban planning, health, and other disciplines has documented the importance of walking to urban sustainability from health, safety, security, environmental and other perspectives. These studies come mainly from countries in North America and Europe, where the majority of the population relies on cars for transportation. Notwithstanding, in many countries in the Global South, walking remains a majority transport mode, while cars increasingly dominate the urban streetscape, but are accessible only to a minority of the population. Chile provides fertile terrain for studying this phenomenon. This article reviews current practice and recent research of walking in Chile, in light of international findings regarding walkability, equity and urban sustainability. To elaborate an overview of the depth and breadth of walking in Chile, an interdisciplinary team conducted a literature review, examined relevant case study material from experience from Chile and in particular from Santiago, and triangulated this mainly qualitative data with results from the origin-destination survey applied in Chile’s main cities, Chilean traffic safety data) and results from official transport reports of other Latin American cities [Tirachini, A. (2019). South America: The challenge of transition. In J. Stanley & D. Hensher (Eds.), A research agenda for transport policy. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing]. Findings show that despite priority public investments that have largely prioritised infrastructure for cars, walking in Chile has remained as the majority transport mode up until today, especially for lower-middle income groups, and particularly for care-related tasks performed mainly by women. In this sense, walking in Chile has proven remarkably persistent. The importance of walking as the main transport mode, against the odds, reflects economic, cultural, and urban form determinants, which are explored in this article. Furthermore, a recent upsurge in public interest and community design initiatives to improve walking, particularly the generation of a Chilean approach to “complete streets” has emerged, opening up opportunities to challenge Chile’s version of automobility in favour of more equitable, active and public transportation modes. There is, therefore, in Chile an opportunity to prioritise the walking mode, improve infrastructure for walkers and build from preserving current high pedestrian modal shares, rather than having to reverse widespread car use, as occurs in many countries in Europe and North America. This potential is highly relevant as these conditions are similar to those in other Latin American cities and, potentially, other cities elsewhere in the Global South.     

Changes in level of household car ownership: the role of life events and spatial context

Recent longitudinal studies of household car ownership have examined factors associated with increases and decreases in car ownership level. The contribution of this panel data analysis is to identify the predictors of different types of car ownership level change (zero to one car, one to two cars and vice versa) and demonstrate that these are quite different in nature. The study develops a large scale data set (n = 19,334), drawing on the first two waves (2009–2011) of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). This has enabled the generation of a comprehensive set of life event and spatial context variables. Changes to composition of households (people arriving and leaving) and to driving licence availability are the strongest predictors of car ownership level changes, followed by employment status and income changes. Households were found to be more likely to relinquish cars in association with an income reduction than they were to acquire cars in association with an income gain. This may be attributed to the economic recession of the time. The effect of having children differs according to car ownership state with it increasing the probability of acquiring a car for non-car owners and increasing the probability of relinquishing a car for two car owners. Sensitivity to spatial context is demonstrated by poorer access to public transport predicting higher probability of a non-car owning household acquiring a car and lower probability of a one-car owning household relinquishing a car. While previous panel studies have had to rely on comparatively small samples, the large scale nature of the UKHLS has provided robust and comprehensive evidence of the factors that determine different car ownership level changes.     

Walking frequency, cars, dogs, and the built environment

To explain walking propensity or frequency, empirical studies have generally used two sets of explanatory variables, namely, socio-demographic variables and built environment variables. They have generally shown that both socio-demographic characteristics and built environment characteristics are associated with walking propensity. We examine the traditional walkability variables that encompass density, mix of uses, and network connectivity in New Jersey, using a statewide sample including an oversample of Jersey City. We estimate a two-stage least squares model using a conditional mixed process that combines an ordered probit model of walking frequency in the second stage based on a truncated regression of car ownership in the first stage. Our results show that built environment variables have some small effects, mainly from better network connectivity associated with increased walking frequency. One of our key findings is that built environment features also work indirectly via how they influence car ownership. In general, we find sufficient evidence that suggests fewer cars are owned in areas with more walkable built environment features. The other key variable that we control for is whether a household owns a dog. This also proved to be strongly associated with walking suggesting that dog ownership is a necessary control variable to understand the frequency of walking.     

National policy towards cars: Hong Kong

The Hong Kong transport policy objective is simply, mobility. With this the automobile must conform. A confined land area, difficult to develop, has absorbed excessive immigration and must now service a dynamic entrepreneurial economy.

Transport infrastructure based on major planning studies is created through government capital and is backed by careful legislation, effective administration and private sector participation. The problem is that overall expansion is even faster: widespread urban renewal—roads cannot equally expand; enormous New Territories New Towns—people still want to move in and out so the need for more transport accelerates. Over ten million trips daily are made by 5.5 million people. The answers cannot be more and more private cars: it must be promoting the most effective use of major transport investments, where possible off roads, and the mass carriers on roads. The need to curb congestion by containing escalating car numbers (especially as so far only 17% of households have access to an automobile) led in May 1982 to imposition of severe taxes on ownership. The ultimate and equitable objective is to control usage. Road pricing may be the answer.

In Hong Kong the private cars is part only of a complex strategy including metro, rail, bus, minibus, ferry, taxi and tram. The car cannot take precedence.     

The role of socio-economic,built environment and psychological factors in parental mode choice for their children in an Iranian setting

This research investigated the role of parental psychological and socio-economic factors as well as built environment for the choice of their children’s (primary school pupils, aged 7–9 years) travel mode to school in Rasht, Iran. A total of 1078 questionnaires were distributed (return rate of 80 percent) among pupils in nine primary schools in January 2014. A mixed logit (ML) model was employed due to its ability to test heterogeneity among parents and also to determine its possible sources. Results of random coefficient ML modelling showed that several psychological, socio-economic and built environment characteristics were significant factors in parental mode choice. Only walking time perception to school had a significant random normal distribution coefficient and no other psychological and socio-economic variable had a random effect. Further investigation by random coefficient analysis showed that the possible source of household preference heterogeneity could be to own two or more cars. Regarding psychological variables, strong parental worry about their children walking alone to school had a negative impact on allowing them to walk to school. Parents who evaluated poor contextual and design preconditions for walking tended to choose school service more than private car and walking. Parents with stronger environmental personal norms were more willing to allow their children to walk. The findings suggest that infrastructural measures, such as sidewalk facilities, neighborhood security and safety, encourage parents to allow children to walk to school. Information campaigns targeting environmental norms may increase walking among pupils in an Iranian setting.     

Are multi-car households better suited for battery electric vehicles? – Driving patterns and economics in Sweden and Germany

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) could reduce CO₂ emissions from the transport sector but their limited electric driving range diminishes their utility to users. The effect of the limited driving range can be reduced in multi-car households where users could choose between a BEV and a conventional car for long-distance travel. However, to what extent the driving patterns of different cars in a multi-car household’s suit the characteristics of a BEV needs further analysis. In this paper we analyse the probability of daily driving above a fixed threshold for conventional cars in current Swedish and German car driving data. We find second cars in multi-car households to require less adaptation and to be better suited for BEV adoption compared to first cars in multi-car households as well as to cars in single-car households. Specifically, the share of second cars that could fulfil all their driving is 20 percentage points higher compared to first cars and cars from single-car households. This result is stable against variation of driving range and of the tolerated number of days requiring adaptation. Furthermore, the range needed to cover all driving needs for about 70% of the vehicles is only 220 km for second cars compared to 390 km for the average car. We can further confirm that second cars have higher market viability from a total cost of ownership perspective. Here, the second cars achieve a 10 percentage points higher market share compared to first cars, and to cars in single-car households for Swedish economic conditions, while for Germany the corresponding figure is 2 percentage points. Our results are important for understanding the market viability of current and near-future BEVs.     

Built environment impacts on walking for transport in Brisbane,Australia

This study examines the association between urban form and walking for transport in Brisbane, Australia based on both panel and cross-sectional data. Cross-sectional data are used to determine whether urban form was associated with walking for transport in 2011. Panel data are used to evaluate whether changes in the built environment altered walking behaviour between 2009 and 2011. Results from the cross-sectional data suggest that individuals are significantly more likely to be walkers if they live in an area with a well-connected street network and an accessible train station. The longitudinal analysis confirms these relationships; there also was however, a significant impact of travel attitudes and perceptions on walking behaviour. The findings suggest that the built environment continues to be an important factor to encourage walking; however, interventions are also required to change social norms in order to increase the receptiveness for and participation in walking.     

Measuring the satisfaction of multimodal travelers for local transit services in different urban contexts

The importance of measuring customer satisfaction for a public transport service is apparent, even beyond more immediate marketing purposes. The present paper shows how satisfaction measures can be exploited to gain insights on the relationship between personal attitudes, transit use and urban context. We consider nine satisfaction measures of urban transit services, as expressed by a representative sample of Italian multimodal travelers (i.e. users of both private cars and public transport). We use correlations and correspondence analyses to show if and how each attribute is related to the levels of use of public transport, and how the relationship is affected by the urban context. Then we apply a recently developed method to combine ordinal variables into one score, by adapting it to work with large samples and with satisfaction measures which have a neutral point in the scale (i.e. “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied”). The resulting overall satisfaction levels and frequency of use were not correlated in our sample. We also found the highest satisfaction levels in smaller towns and the lowest ones in metropolitan cities. Since we focus on multimodal travelers, an interpretation paradigm is proposed according to which transit services must be well evaluated by car drivers in smaller towns in order to be considered a real alternative to cars. On the other hand, transit is more competitive on factual elements in larger cities, so that it can still be used by drivers, even if it is not very well evaluated.     

Modelling car ownership in Great Britain

Over the last 50 years there has been a tenfold increase in the number of cars in Great Britain, rising from 2.6 million vehicles in 1951 to 27 million vehicles in 2001. Over the same period there has been a steady reduction in the proportion of households without access to a car and a steady increase in the proportion of households with two or more cars. If such trends continue, it is likely that there will be increased energy consumption, increased problems with traffic congestion and atmospheric pollution, and reductions to the financial viability of public transport. Given the importance of car ownership to transport and land-use planning and its relationship with energy consumption, the environment and health, it is the objective of this research to develop econometric models of household car ownership and apply the models to generate forecasts across Britain to the year 2031. To achieve this objective, the research develops discrete choice models of the household’s decision to own zero, one, two or three or more vehicles as a function of market saturation, licence holding, household income and structure, household employment, company car provision, and purchase and use costs. The models are validated to data from the 2001 Census and are used to develop a range of forecasts taking into account changes to the socio-demographic characteristics of Britain.     

Metropolitan sprawl measurement and its impacts on commuting trips and road emissions

This study measures urban form as indicators of metropolitan sprawl and explores its impact on commuting trips and NO_x and CO₂ emissions from road traffic in all metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and four groups’ MSAs separated by population in the continental United States. Encompassing all MSAs, the study adds the accessibility factor to four existing factors: density, land use mix, centeredness, and street connectivity. The study establishes multivariate regression models between urban form, commuting trips, and emissions from road traffic while controlling for socioeconomic conditions. The study shows that urban form index and five urban form factors have a statistically significant association with commuting trips, NO_x and CO₂ emissions from road traffic. In four MSA groups as determined by MSA population size, higher values of urban form factors (i.e., lower sprawl) are statistically associated with more walking commuters. On the other hand, higher values of urban form factors are associated with fewer commuting vehicles per household in large MSAs with the moderate effect, a lower average commuting drive time in medium and small MSAs, and more commuters using public transportation in medium and large MSAs. This study provides an urban form index covering all metropolitan areas in the continental United States by adding another urban form factor, and the findings show that urban form factors have different effects on mode choices, drive time, and emission from road traffic depending on the MSA population size.     

Social networks as a source of private-vehicle transportation: The practice of getting rides and borrowing vehicles among Mexican immigrants in California

We examine the role of social networks in enabling access to private-vehicle transportation, through getting rides and borrowing cars. Based on qualitative findings from ten focus group discussions with recent Mexican immigrants to California, half of whom have no car, we describe the extent to which participants depend on rides and borrowed cars for transportation. We highlight the unique aspects of informal access to cars, drawing on social exchange theory and related research to characterize the procurement process and likely levels of exchange. We discuss the implications of these findings for transportation services that might serve this and other community groups.     

Metro commuters’ satisfaction in multi-type access and egress transferring groups

This paper considers both the access and egress stages as an entire process to analyze the satisfaction levels of commuters with metro commuter journeys. Based on a survey in Nanjing, China, seven intermodal travel groups are employed as targets for this analysis. The groups include Walk–Metro–Walk, Walk–Metro–Bus, Bike–Metro–Walk, Bike–Metro–Bus, Bus–Metro–Walk, Bus–Metro–Bus and Car–Metro–Walk, which are named according to the modes of transportation that are employed for access and egress trips. Binary logit models are developed for each group to identify the main factors of satisfaction level. The results show that access and egress stages serve important but different roles in the seven groups. Facility service qualities in two stages are the primary factors that affect overall satisfaction. The groups with same access or egress modes have significantly different core factors. Access by bike and bike–metro–transit users are concerned with bike parking safety, whereas bike–metro–walk users value parking spaces near metro stations. With two transfers between bus and metro, transit–metro–transit users indicate that the weak point in the access stage is the crowded spaces on buses. However, transit–metro–walk users value bus on-time performance, which is also valued by groups with metro–bus egress transfers. For egress by walking, commuters that use motorized modes for access are concerned with the egress walking environment, whereas users of non-motorized access modes are more concerned with egress walking spaces. The findings of this study are helpful for policy developments than can improve public satisfaction with commutes by urban metro.     

Consumer car preferences and information search channels

In this paper, we measure the relations between stated and revealed car preferences and the use of information sources in the car-purchasing process, based on a survey of households in the Netherlands. The analysis showed that attitudinal and behavioral constructs are found for ‘environmental’, ‘performance’, and ‘convenience’ preferences, but that there is a ‘gap’ between attitude and behavior. The results show that people with a positive environmental attitude who also show environmentally friendly behavior have more involvement with cars than people who do not translate their environmental attitude into the corresponding behavior. This leads to the idea that not only environmental knowledge but also involvement with cars is a prerequisite for buying an environmentally friendly car.     

Deconstructing development density: Quality, quantity and price effects on household non-work travel

Smart growth and transit-oriented development proponents advocate increasing the density of new land development and infill redevelopment. This is partly in order to reduce auto use, by reducing distances between trip origins and destinations, creating a more enjoyable walking environment, slowing down road travel, and increasing the market for transit. But research investigating how development density influences household travel has typically been inadequate to account for this complex set of hypotheses: it has used theoretically unjustified measures, has not accounted for spatial scale very well, and has not investigated potentially important combinations of measures. Using data from a survey of metropolitan households in California, measures of development density corresponding to the main hypotheses about how density affects travel—activity density affecting distance traveled, network load density affecting the speed of auto travel, and built form density affecting the quality of walking—are tested as independent variables in models of auto trip speed and individual non-work travel. Residential network load density is highly negatively correlated with the speed of driving, and is also highly correlated with non-work travel, both singly and in combination with other measures. Activity density and built form density are not as significantly related, on their own. These results suggest that denser development will not influence travel very much unless road level-of-service standards and parking requirements are reduced or eliminated.     

Rural mobility and mode choice: Evidence from the 2001 National Household Travel Survey

This article uses data from the 2001 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) to compare travel behavior in rural and urban areas of the U.S. As expected, the car is the overwhelmingly dominant mode of travel. Over 97% of rural households own at least one car vs. 92% of urban households; 91% of trips are made by car in rural areas vs. 86% in urban areas. Regardless of age, income, and race, almost everyone in rural areas relies on the private car for most travel needs. Mobility levels in rural areas are generally higher than in urban areas. That results from the more dispersed residences and activity sites in rural areas, which increase trip distances and force reliance on the car. Somewhat surprisingly, the rural elderly and poor are considerably more mobile than their urban counterparts, and their mobility deficit compared to the rural population average is strikingly less than for the urban elderly and poor compared to the urban average. Data limitations prevented a measurement of accessibility, however, and it seems likely that rural areas, by their very nature, are less accessible than urban areas, especially for the small percentage of car-less poor and elderly households.     

The effect of the oil crisis on the growth in the ownership and use of cars

Since the oil crisis of 1973, a number of studies have been made in various countries of the effects of the rise in petrol prices on the level of traffic flow, but rather fewer have attempted to delineate the complex chain of reactions within the car market set off by this impulse. We attempt to do this, using data from the UK.Since 1966 during the prediction stage of the first London Transportation Study it became obvious that low income and high income households had different rates of growth of car ownership, mainly because low income households bought cheap, old cars which vary in quantity and price differently from expensive, new cars. The Greater London Council therefore sponsored a study of car prices by age and size, starting from 1957 annually, and since the oil crisis, evaluated monthly. This has enabled us to examine the strong change in trend that had occurred, with large cars depreciating 15% per annum more than the smallest. The quantities of cars of each size registered each month are available from national statistics and this enables us to say that the previous 1% per annum increase in car size was arrested, with new cars becoming substantially smaller.A model of the car market has been developed which relates on the one hand the price distribution of cars by age, and on the other hand the price. distribution of the stock of cars owned at each household income level. Via the expenditure on car purchase at each household income level and the distribution of the length of time between purchase and resale of cars, a fully dynamic model has been developed to relate expenditure flow and stock. This enables us to test the effect of different trends on the dynamic equilibrium in the car market.The implications of the two trends noted above on the prediction of future car ownership growth are discussed, with the standstill since the oil crisis attributed to petrol prices via the split in household expenditure between purchase and use.     

Spatial transferability assessment of a composite walkability index: The Pedestrian Index of the Environment (PIE)

This paper analyzes the transferability of a composite walkability index, the Pedestrian Index of the Environment (PIE), to the Greater Montréal Area (GMA). The PIE was developed in Portland, Oregon, and is based on proprietary data. It combines six urban form variables into a score ranging from 20 to 100. The measure introduces several methodological refinements which have not been applied concurrently in previous efforts: a wide coverage of the different dimensions of the urban form, together with the use of a distance-based decay function and modelling-based weighing of the variables.This measure is applied to the GMA using local data in order to evaluate the feasibility of its transfer (the possibility of locally replicating the measure). It is then included in a series of mode choice models to assess its transferability (the capacity of the measure to describe walkability and predict mode choice in another urban area). The models, segmented by trip distance or trip purpose, are estimated and validated against observed trip data from the 2013 Origin-Destination survey.Significant positive correlation is found between the PIE and the choice of walking for short trips, for all purposes as well as for four specific trip purposes. The inclusion of the PIE also improves the accuracy of the modelling process as well as the prediction of the choice of walking for short trips. The PIE can therefore be used in the GMA, and potentially in other metropolitan areas, to improve the modelling of travel behavior for short trips.