Ben Clark

Life Events and Travel Behavior

Recent research has indicated that changes in travel behavior are more likely at the time of major life events. However, much remains to be learned about the extent to which different life events trigger behavioral change and the conditions under which life events are more likely to trigger change. The UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) offers a previously unavailable opportunity to investigate this topic for a large, representative sample of the UK population. UKHLS data were also linked to local spatial data drawn from the census and other sources to elucidate the effect of the spatial context on changes to travel behavior in association with life events. Findings from an exploratory analysis of data from UKHLS Waves 1 and 2 are presented first. Transition tables demonstrate a strong association between changes in car ownership and commute mode and the following life events: employment changes, residential relocation, retirement, the birth of children, and changes in household structure. The results of logit models that relate the probability of an increase and a decrease in the number of cars owned to the occurrence of life events and that control for individual and household characteristics and spatial context are then shown. These models show, for example, that moves to urban and rural areas have contrasting effects on travel behavior and that having a new child in itself is not a significant influence on car ownership in the short term.

Towards a theory of the dynamics of household car ownership: Insights from a mobility biographies approach

Household car ownership has arguably been one of the most widely studied areas within the field of transport research. Recently, studies in this area have moved to a focus on understanding the dynamic (time varying) nature of household car ownership. The chapter advances the contention that there is often a missing link between the reporting of empirical findings relating to the dynamics of household car ownership, and a critical articulation of theory that both underpins and is developed through the empirical research. The chapter explores how the ‘Mobility Biographies’ approach offers a new opportunity to revisit the relationship between theory and empirical approaches to examining household car ownership and how it changes over the life course. It presents a dynamic conceptual framework that was generated from qualitative accounts of car ownership histories and empirical results from a large-scale panel data set that confirm the strong association between life events and car ownership changes. It concludes with an assessment of the differing longitudinal analytical approaches (both qualitative and quantitative) that may be effectively combined in furthering understanding and developing theory.