Is the urbanisation of young adults reducing their driving?

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd In recent decades, in many developed countries, licence-holding, car ownership and driving, amongst young adults have declined. One of the explanations advanced for these declines is the urbanisation of young adults, their growing concentration in the denser areas of larger cities. This study analyses the changing spatial patterns and travel behaviour of young adults over time using a complete national dataset for England between 2001 and 2011. It uses a fractional response model to analyse the changing relationship between the proportion of young adults driving to work, and using public transport to get to work, and population density and settlement size. It finds that urbanisation contributed to less driving and more public transport use amongst young adults aged 16–34. These changes followed a change in national planning policy which encouraged higher density development in urban areas. These policies caused a re-urbanisation of the population as a whole, with the strongest trends amongst young adults. The re-urbanisation of the population was accompanied by a widening of the differentials in travel behaviour between those in the densest areas and the largest settlements (who drove less) and the rest. These findings cast new light on the controversy over ‘residential self-selection’. They suggest that a change in planning policy probably caused a modest national fall in driving. Residential self-selection, which is often considered a barrier to such policies, facilitated those outcomes

Rethinking the links between social exclusion and transport disadvantage through the lens of social capital

This paper provides a critical review of the progress in understanding the linkages between transport disadvantage and social exclusion. It follows earlier work in proposing social capital as a concept that mediates those linkages but argues that transport researchers must not confine themselves to conceptualisations of social capital as predominantly benign and capable of reducing transport disadvantage and social exclusion. A range of hypothetical pathways is discussed, highlighting the Janus-faced character of social capital as a medium for both the effectuation of progressive social change and the perpetuation and creation of social inequalities. An analysis is provided of the extent to which the recent transport-related literature supports or rejects the hypothesised pathways, and key avenues for future research are identified

Shedding light on the psychological and behavioral determinants of travel mode choice: A meta-analysis

Mobility represents a relevant topic from the standpoint of environmental degradation, health-related consequences and social inclusion. Since private mobility is responsible for the greatest share of polluting emissions, it is necessary to gain deeper understanding of the mechanisms underpinning the choice of individuals to use either cars or alternative, environment-friendly transport modes. A meta-analysis on 58 primary studies is conducted to synthesize evidence on the determinants of travel mode choice, as regards both behavioral intentions and actual behaviors. Results suggest that, besides intentions, habits and past use represent the most relevant predictor, followed by constructs referring to the Theory of Planned Behavior framework. Environmental variables, on the other hand, play a relevant role in shaping behavioral intentions while their effect on actual behaviors is negligible, so that a deep intention behavior gap emerges. A moderator analysis is performed to explain the high heterogeneity in the results. Behaviors’ operationalization and measurement emerges as the moderator affecting heterogeneity of outcomes the most; trip purpose, sample type and year of the study also show a moderate effect on heterogeneity, while location does not appear to be a relevant moderator

Long-distance travel and urban systems : Development of a theoretical and methodological framework and empirical evidence from Western Europe

It is evident in many countries worldwide that both the frequency and the distance of personal travel have grown concurrently with the proliferation of telecommunications that might substitute for travel. While the understanding of the determinants of long-distance travel is still limited in the literature, flows of people are relevant expressions of relations between metropolitan areas. This thesis has sought to enhance insight into the determinants of long-distance travel behaviour and to advance the understanding of the configurations of an urban system at the inter-metropolitan level on the basis of flows of people. To achieve this aim, the following four research questions were addressed: 1.To what extent do the participation in long-distance travel and mode choice for long-distance travel vary systematically with socio-economic and urban form factors? 2.What are the main characteristics of a suitable theoretical and methodological framework for characterising configurations of urban system on the basis of flows? 3.To what extent can the development of the configurations of urban system in the Netherlands be characterised based on the interaction perspective during the period 1992-2002? 4.To what extent do flows of people between urban areas and attributes of urban areas produce different outcome with respect to the position of urban nodes in the larger urban system

Ranking functional urban regions : a comparison of interaction and node attribute data

Although many studies employ either interaction- or node-attribute data to study the positions of cities in the urban system, relatively little is known about the relationships between these two different types of data. This study explores this relationship by ranking and comparing 39 metropolitan areas in Western Europe according to their relative role in the system of flows and their concentration of functions. The former is measured via the intensity of interaction, and the connectivity or distribution of interaction across links associated with nodes. The latter is measured via four dimensions: its sociodemographic, economic, transport accessibility, and tourism characteristics. The results show that the relationships between interaction and node attributes differ for types of flow. Compared with business flows, holiday flows and node-attributes are less strongly correlated. We also find that the differences between the two rankings can be explained to some extent by the fact that corporeal interaction is influenced by the physical barriers imposed by sea

ON THE PARTICIPATION IN MEDIUM- AND LONG-DISTANCE TRAVEL: A DECOMPOSITION ANALYSIS FOR THE UK AND THE NETHERLANDS

Social and economic benefits have accrued from medium- and long-distance travel, but at the expense of the environment. Since the travel behaviour literature tends to concentrate on short-distance trips or trips within daily urban systems, a better understanding of the factors shaping medium- and long-distance travel is needed. Using the 1998 National Travel Surveys for the UK and the Netherlands, the study reported here characterises medium- and long-distance travellers in terms of socio-economic attributes, time availability, day of travel, and land-use related factors. The results suggest that, in both countries, males and individuals with a higher socio-economic status are more likely to engage in medium- and long-distance travel. The analysis further shows that the overall structure of the urban system in combination with the size of the country and the local population density affect the participation in medium- and long-distance travel. Such factors should be considered explicitly in future studies of medium- and long-distance travel. Copyright (c) 2006 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.

A theoretical framework and methodology for characterising national urban systems on the basis of flows of people: empirical evidence for France and Germany

In advanced economies, flows play an important part in connecting urban nodes. This paper sets up a framework for identifying and classifying the pattern of the urban systems from an interaction perspective. Three S-dimensions are proposed (that is, the strength of interaction, the symmetry of interaction and the structure of the network) and a set of indices that are important for characterising network configurations. Using the European long-distance mobility database (DATELINE), the framework is applied to examine the pattern of interaction between functional urban areas (FURs) in France and Germany. The analysis is carried out separately for three journey purposes: business, holiday and leisure. The results reveal that national urban systems embrace a wide variety of constellations and that considerable variation in these constellations can be observed across journey purposes and countries. Overall, the authors are confident that the proposed framework provides a useful analytical tool for characterising the configurations of urban systems

The influence of socio-economic characteristics, land use and travel time considerations on mode choice for medium- and longer-distance trips

This paper contributes to the limited number of investigations into the influence of the spatial configuration of land use and transport systems on mode choice for medium- and longer-distance travel (defined here as home-based trips of 50 km and over) in the Netherlands. We have employed data from the 1998 Netherlands National Travel Survey to address the question as to how socioeconomic factors, land use attributes, and travel time affect mode choice for medium- and longer-distance travel, and how their role varies across trip purposes: commuting, business, and leisure. The empirical analysis indicates that land use attributes and travel time considerations are important in explaining the variation in mode choice for medium- and longer-distance travel when controlling for the socioeconomic characteristics of travellers