Relationships among access to Bus Rapid Transit, urban form, and household transportation outcomes: Evidence from a quasi-longitudinal study in Bogotá, Colombia

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has become popular as a means to provide reliable, non-automobile-based mobility and alleviate impacts of rising traffic congestion in cities around the world. To date, however, there is little empirical evidence supporting BRT's potential to meet these objectives, and limited understanding of the urban form conditions necessary to support BRT. This research improves knowledge of BRT's potential as an alternative to vehicle ownership at the household level and provides new evidence of the role of urban form in supporting transit investment. I use a difference-in-differences research design to examine the changes in vehicle ownership and non-car mobility from before to after implementation of Bogotá, Colombia's TransMilenio BRT system. With respect to vehicle ownership, my results indicate access to TransMilenio's main trunk system is negatively related to the odds of vehicle ownership for higher wealth households. Among lower wealth households, access to the main trunk system is not related to vehicle ownership except in neighborhoods with urban forms that are supportive of walking, bicycling, and transit use. Furthermore, I find access to TransMilenio's feeder system (which brings passengers from peripheral neighborhoods into the main trunk system) is associated with an unexpected increase in the odds of vehicle ownership. This increase may be due not necessarily to the introduction of the feeder service itself, but to concurrent policies of upgrading roadways and investing in housing stock in feeder served neighborhoods. Regardless of the cause, however, the increase in vehicle ownership among lower wealth, feeder-served households appears to be reversed in neighborhoods where urban form supports transit and non-motorized travel. This finding suggests the importance of a concerted effort to coordinate transit interventions with urban development policies that support those interventions, particularly in lower wealth neighborhoods. I found no evidence TransMilenio access was significantly related to non-car mobility (tour frequency, travel purpose diversity, and vehicle independence) among lower wealth car-less households. Relationships between mobility and urban form were ambiguous and inconsistent. I attribute these results to limitations in the available techniques for measuring mobility. I describe to improve the validity and reliability of these techniques in future research.Doctor of Philosoph

Reliability and validity of the Safe Routes to school parent and student surveys

Abstract Background The purpose of this study is to assess the reliability and validity of the U.S. National Center for Safe Routes to School's in-class student travel tallies and written parent surveys. Over 65,000 tallies and 374,000 parent surveys have been completed, but no published studies have examined their measurement properties. Methods Students and parents from two Charlotte, NC (USA) elementary schools participated. Tallies were conducted on two consecutive days using a hand-raising protocol; on day two students were also asked to recall the previous days' travel. The recall from day two was compared with day one to assess 24-hour test-retest reliability. Convergent validity was assessed by comparing parent-reports of students' travel mode with student-reports of travel mode. Two-week test-retest reliability of the parent survey was assessed by comparing within-parent responses. Reliability and validity were assessed using kappa statistics. Results A total of 542 students participated in the in-class student travel tally reliability assessment and 262 parent-student dyads participated in the validity assessment. Reliability was high for travel to and from school (kappa > 0.8); convergent validity was lower but still high (kappa > 0.75). There were no differences by student grade level. Two-week test-retest reliability of the parent survey (n = 112) ranged from moderate to very high for objective questions on travel mode and travel times (kappa range: 0.62 - 0.97) but was substantially lower for subjective assessments of barriers to walking to school (kappa range: 0.31 - 0.76). Conclusions The student in-class student travel tally exhibited high reliability and validity at all elementary grades. The parent survey had high reliability on questions related to student travel mode, but lower reliability for attitudinal questions identifying barriers to walking to school. Parent survey design should be improved so that responses clearly indicate issues that influence parental decision making in regards to their children's mode of travel to school

Examining changes in travel patterns among lower wealth households after BRT investment in Bogotá, Colombia

Bogotá, Colombia\u27s TransMilenio Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system has garnered praise for its beneficial effects on transit ridership, congestion, and air quality, yet there has been little research into the system\u27s impacts on individuals and households, particularly on the city\u27s lower wealth households. These households tend to be located in peripheral neighborhoods and access the BRT system largely via its sprawling network of feeder buses, rather than directly accessing the more central trunk lines. This paper examines the relationship between BRT access—especially feeder-based BRT access—and the degree to which the city\u27s lower wealth households are able meet needs for mobility and out-of-home activity participation by analyzing changes in self-reported travel patterns among lower wealth households from before to after introduction of the BRT system. A secondary aim of this paper is to propose and test the variable ‘travel purpose diversity’ as an indicator of the degree to which households are able to meet their needs for out-of-home activity participation. Further work is needed to improve measurement of mobility in order to assess the household-level impacts of transit investments, particularly on lower wealth households. The results provide preliminary support for the validity of this indicator. Overall, findings suggest that the introduction of the BRT has not had a substantial or significant impact on the ability of Bogotá\u27s lower wealth households to meet daily mobility needs. The paper presents some possible interpretations of these findings and offers suggestions for additional research to help improve our understanding of the impacts of Bogotá\u27s transit investment

Driving change: Exploring the adoption of multimodal local traffic impact assessment practices

Local governments in the US face growing public demands to reduce automobile dependence in order to forestall climate change, improve road safety, rein in sprawling peripheral land development, increase transportation equity, and enhance urban livability. As a result, many city and county leaders are looking for ways to provide alternatives to driving through the creation of more multimodal-supportive transportation systems and land use patterns. The academic literature has identified conventional traffic impact- assessment (TIA) practices—designed to ensure new developments do not increase automobile traffic congestion—as a barrier to supporting these multimodal efforts. Because of the growing emphasis on multimodality in many national, state, and regional policies and initiatives (e.g., Complete Streets, Vision Zero), we investigate whether and how communities were adapting TIA practices to better accommodate pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, and other non-car travel modes in the land development process

Joint impacts of Bus Rapid Transit and urban form on vehicle ownership: New evidence from a quasi-longitudinal analysis in Bogotá, Colombia

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has become popular as a means to provide non-automobile-based mobility and alleviate the impacts of rising traffic congestion in cities around the world. However, there is little empirical evidence supporting BRT’s potential to meet these objectives. This research improves our knowledge of BRT’s potential as an alternative to vehicle ownership at the household level and provides new evidence of the role of urban form in supporting transit investment. We use a difference-in-differences research design to examine the change in vehicle ownership from before to after implementation of Bogotá, Colombia’s TransMilenio BRT system. Our results indicate access to TransMilenio’s main trunk system is significantly and negatively associated with vehicle ownership for higher wealth households. Among lower wealth households, access to the trunk system and the complementary feeder system (designed to bring passengers from peripheral neighborhoods into the main trunk system) are both associated with an unexpected increase in the odds of vehicle ownership; however, that increase appears to be reversed in neighborhoods where the built environment supports transit and non-motorized travel. This research contributes a methodology for joint analysis of urban form and transit availability on vehicle ownership, and demonstrates that urban form and transit access can have a synergistic effect. Neglecting this synergy would be a missed opportunity to further leverage the benefits of BRT investments. Our findings also suggest that, in the case of Bogotá, the vehicle ownership impacts of BRT investment may not accrue to lower income households unless that investment is coordinated with policies to promote supportive urban form

Reliability and validity of the Safe Routes to school parent and student surveys

Abstract Background The purpose of this study is to assess the reliability and validity of the U.S. National Center for Safe Routes to School's in-class student travel tallies and written parent surveys. Over 65,000 tallies and 374,000 parent surveys have been completed, but no published studies have examined their measurement properties. Methods Students and parents from two Charlotte, NC (USA) elementary schools participated. Tallies were conducted on two consecutive days using a hand-raising protocol; on day two students were also asked to recall the previous days' travel. The recall from day two was compared with day one to assess 24-hour test-retest reliability. Convergent validity was assessed by comparing parent-reports of students' travel mode with student-reports of travel mode. Two-week test-retest reliability of the parent survey was assessed by comparing within-parent responses. Reliability and validity were assessed using kappa statistics. Results A total of 542 students participated in the in-class student travel tally reliability assessment and 262 parent-student dyads participated in the validity assessment. Reliability was high for travel to and from school (kappa > 0.8); convergent validity was lower but still high (kappa > 0.75). There were no differences by student grade level. Two-week test-retest reliability of the parent survey (n = 112) ranged from moderate to very high for objective questions on travel mode and travel times (kappa range: 0.62 - 0.97) but was substantially lower for subjective assessments of barriers to walking to school (kappa range: 0.31 - 0.76). Conclusions The student in-class student travel tally exhibited high reliability and validity at all elementary grades. The parent survey had high reliability on questions related to student travel mode, but lower reliability for attitudinal questions identifying barriers to walking to school. Parent survey design should be improved so that responses clearly indicate issues that influence parental decision making in regards to their children's mode of travel to school.</p

RESEARCH Open Access Reliability and validity of the Safe Routes to school parent and student surveys

Background: The purpose of this study is to assess the reliability and validity of the U.S. National Center for Safe Routes to School’s in-class student travel tallies and written parent surveys. Over 65,000 tallies and 374,000 parent surveys have been completed, but no published studies have examined their measurement properties. Methods: Students and parents from two Charlotte, NC (USA) elementary schools participated. Tallies were conducted on two consecutive days using a hand-raising protocol; on day two students were also asked to recall the previous days ’ travel. The recall from day two was compared with day one to assess 24-hour test-retest reliability. Convergent validity was assessed by comparing parent-reports of students ’ travel mode with studentreports of travel mode. Two-week test-retest reliability of the parent survey was assessed by comparing withinparent responses. Reliability and validity were assessed using kappa statistics. Results: A total of 542 students participated in the in-class student travel tally reliability assessment and 262 parent-student dyads participated in the validity assessment. Reliability was high for travel to and from school (kappa&gt; 0.8); convergent validity was lower but still high (kappa&gt; 0.75). There were no differences by student grade level. Two-week test-retest reliability of the parent survey (n = 112) ranged from moderate to very high for objective questions on travel mode and travel times (kappa range: 0.62- 0.97) but was substantially lower for subjective assessments of barriers to walking to school (kappa range: 0.31- 0.76). Conclusions: The student in-class student travel tally exhibited high reliability and validity at all elementary grades. The parent survey had high reliability on questions related to student travel mode, but lower reliability for attitudinal questions identifying barriers to walking to school. Parent survey design should be improved so that responses clearly indicate issues that influence parental decision making in regards to their children’s mode of travel to school