Kevin J. Krizek

Residential Relocation and Changes in Urban Travel: Does Neighborhood-Scale Urban Form Matter?

Abstract This article presents an empirical study of the relationship between neighborhood-scale urban form and travel behavior. It focuses on households who relocate within the Central Puget Sound region to determine if they change their travel behavior when they move from one neighborhood type to another. Regression models are used to predict change in travel behavior as a function of change in neighborhood accessibility, controlling for changes in life cycle, regional accessibility, and workplace accessibility. The study is unique in that it analyzes the travel behavior of the same households in a longitudinal manner in concert with detailed urban form measures. The findings suggest that households change travel behavior when exposed to differing urban forms. In particular, locating to areas with higher neighborhood accessibility decreases vehicle miles traveled.

Proximity to Trails and Retail: Effects on Urban Cycling and Walking

Abstract This study used multivariate modeling techniques to estimate the effect of household proximity to retail and bicycle facilities on the odds of walking and cycling in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. We analyzed these relationships employing detailed GIS data and individual-level travel diary data. We found that distances to retail and bicycle facilities are statistically significant predictors of choosing active modes of transport at close distances, but the relationships do not appear to be linear.

Operationalizing Neighborhood Accessibility for Land Use-Travel Behavior Research and Regional Modeling

Many land use-transportation planning proposals aim to create neighborhoods with higher levels of neighborhood accessibility (NA). This article focuses on how such features are operationalized for purposes of research and/or regional modeling. The first section reviews specific variables classified by three basic tenets of NA: density, land use framework, and streets/design. The second section describes challenges in measuring NA to provide a better understanding of how such challenges shape research efforts and applications. The final section creates an NA index that is applied to the Central Puget Sound metropolitan area. The index uses detailed measures of density, land use mix, and street patterns and makes at least five contributions for urban form research.

NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES, TRIP PURPOSE, AND TOUR-BASED TRAVEL

Communities are increasingly looking to land use planning strategies to reduce drive-alone travel. Many planning efforts aim to develop neighborhoods with higher levels of accessibility that will allow residents to shop closer to home and drive fewer miles. To better understand how accessible land use patterns relate to household travel behavior, this paper is divided into three sections. The first section describes the typical range of services available in areas with high neighborhood accessibility. It explains how trip-based travel analysis is limited because it does not consider the linked (chained) nature of most travel. The second section describes a framework that provides a more behavioral understanding of household travel. This framework highlights travel tours, the sequence of trips that begin and end at home, as the basic unit of analysis. The paper offers a typology of travel tours to account for different travel purposes; by doing so, this typology helps understand tours relative to the range of services typically offered in accessible neighborhoods. The final section empirically analyzes relationships between tour type and neighborhood access using detailed travel data from the Central Puget Sound region (Seattle, Washington). Households living in areas with higher levels of neighborhood access are found to complete more tours and make fewer stops per tour. They make more simple tours (out and back) for work and maintenance (personal, appointment, and shopping) trip purposes but there is no difference in the frequency of other types of tours. While they travel shorter distances for maintenance-type errands, a large portion of their maintenance travel is still pursued outside the neighborhood. These findings suggest that while higher levels of neighborhood access influences travel tours, it does not spur households to complete the bulk of their errands close to home.

Explaining Changes in Walking and Bicycling Behavior: Challenges for Transportation Research

As issues of traffic congestion, obesity, and environmental conservation receive increased attention globally and in the US, focus turns to the role that walking and cycling can play in mitigating such problems. This enthusiasm has created a need for evidence on the degree to which policies to increase walking and cycling travel have worked. This paper outlines the important challenges researchers face in their attempts to produce credible evidence on walking and cycling interventions. It closes by discussing matters to consider in such research endeavors, including the importance of clear conceptualization, sound research design, measurement innovations, and strategic sampling.

Higher education's sustainability imperative: how to practically respond?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe four phases for how universities have addressed a sustainability agenda and offer specific lessons for how and where experiences on one campus, the University of Colorado Boulder, have been met with success and other challenges. The authors offer general reflections for executing university‐wide sustainability initiatives with a central intent of illuminating central barriers against, and incentives for, a coordinated and integrated approach to campus sustainability.Design/methodology/approach – The approach for arriving at four phases and a description of the University of Colorado Boulder is based on experiences from learning, teaching, and administering within universities–collectively for almost a century among the authors–and lessons from “war room” discussions.Findings – Sustainability initiatives on campus may evolve through a series of phases labeled: grassroots; executive acceptance of the business case for sustainability; the visionary campus le...

Analysis of lifestyle choices: Neighborhood type, travel patterns, and activity participation

Activity-based travel modeling has begun to make significant progress toward a more behavioral framework for simulating household travel behavior. A significant challenge remains in the need to address the interaction of daily activity and travel patterns with longer-term household choices of vehicle ownership, residential location, and employment location. The choices often depend on one another and jointly define the lifestyle of the household. These choices are likely to evolve over the course of the life cycle as households are formed; as children are born, raised, and ultimately depart to form their own households; and as retirement and old age change patterns of residence, work, and travel. A framework is developed for analyzing household choices relating to three dimensions of lifestyle: travel patterns (including vehicle ownership), activity participation, and residential location (neighborhood type). With cluster analysis on data from the Puget Sound Transportation Panel, nine classifications of lifestyle are uncovered. These clusters demonstrate empirically how decisions of residential location reinforce and affect daily decisions related to travel patterns and activity participation. The applicability of these lifestyle clusters for land use transportation planning is discussed.

Analyzing Transit Service Reliability Using Detailed Data From Automatic Vehicular Locator Systems

The widespread adoption of automated vehicle location systems and automatic passenger counters in the transit industry has opened new venues in transit operations and system monitoring. Metro Transit, the primary transit agency in the Twin Cities, Minnesota region, has been testing various intelligent transportation systems (ITS) since 1999. In 2005, they fully implemented automatic vehicle location (AVL) technology and partially implemented an automatic passenger counter (APC) system. To date, however, there has been little effort to employ the data that has been collected to evaluate different aspects of performance. This research capitalizes on the availability of such data to better assess performance issues of one particular route in the Metro Transit system. The paper employs the archived data from the location systems of buses traversing on an example cross-town route to conduct a microscopic analysis of the reasons behind performance and reliability issues. We generate a series of analytical models to predict run time, schedule adherence and reliability of the transit route at two scales: the time point segment and the route level. The methodology includes multiple approaches to display ITS data within a geographic information system (GIS) environment to allow visual identification of problem areas along routes. The methodology also uses statistical models generated at the time point segment and bus route level of analysis to demonstrate ways of identifying reliability issues and what causes them. The analytical models show that while headways are maintained, schedule revisions are needed in order to improve run time. Finally, the analysis suggests that many scheduled stops along this route are underutilized and recommends stop consolidation as an effective strategy.

E‐Shopping and its Relationship with In‐store Shopping: Empirical Evidence from the Netherlands and the USA

Abstract Despite considerable examination of the impact of telecommunications on travel, little empirical evidence sheds light on the impact of e‐shopping on travel—a recent and increasingly popular form of telecommunications. This paper analyses determinants of online buying and their relationship with in‐store shopping, using empirical data obtained from Minneapolis, USA, and Utrecht, the Netherlands. Based on chi‐square tests and logistic and ordinary least‐squares regressions, the results indicate that online buying is affected by sociodemographics and spatial characteristics of people, their Internet experience, and their attitudes towards in‐store shopping. US respondents who prefer to see products in person are less likely to buy online. Dutch respondents are more likely to buy online as travel times to shops are shorter. At first sight, this counterintuitive result might be related to an urban, innovative lifestyle that supports e‐shopping. A more detailed analysis of Dutch online buyers reveals that they make more shopping trips than non‐online buyers and have a shorter shopping duration. The results indicate that the relationship between online buying and in‐store shopping is not one of substitution but of complementarity.

PRETEST-POSTTEST STRATEGY FOR RESEARCHING NEIGHBORHOOD-SCALE URBAN FORM AND TRAVEL BEHAVIOR

Communities are increasingly looking to land use planning strategies based on a less auto-dependent urban form to reduce the need for travel, especially drive-alone travel. In recent years, several studies have attempted to test the impact urban form has on travel behavior to determine if such designs are warranted. The results of these studies are mixed because of several shortcomings. Some shortcomings can be attributed to data availability; others are a product of the techniques used to characterize urban form or travel. Still other shortcomings are embedded in the strategies employed, using cross-sectional travel data and correlating travel outcomes with urban form. The line of research is being extended, aimed at isolating the influence of urban form on travel behavior; a new research strategy is presented using longitudinal travel data in concert with detailed measures of travel behavior and urban form. Data sources from the Puget Sound are described and a research strategy is presented that permits a pretest-posttest analysis of households’ travel behavior before and after they changed residential location. Early results show few changes in household travel behavior after a move, suggesting that attitudes toward travel are firmly entrenched and postmove travel provides little insight into how changes in urban form affect travel. Although a pretest-posttest makes valiant strides in shedding new light on the matter, the complex phenomenon being addressed requires myriad approaches. More comprehensive research techniques and even research approaches based on different different traditions are much needed to better understand how urban form and travel interact.