An analysis of household transportation spending during the 2007-2009 US economic recession

The recent economic recession in the United States led to widespread destruction of jobs, home foreclosures, credit freeze and to creditor repossessions of key assets such as personal cars. Our objective is to empirically assess transportation conditions of US households with a focus on transportation spending. The latter is examined in the context of changes in multiple metrics such as total number of household cars, zero-vehicle status, expenditures on local public transportation and gasoline, down payment and net purchase price of cars, decline in household vehicle stock, and interest rates on auto loans. Using an econometric model of repeated cross-sections of data on households from the Consumer Expenditure Survey for the period 2005 through 2009, we examine factors which affect recession-period spending. In an effort to demonstrate the effects of the recession on specific groups, as well as to examine equity implications for vulnerable populations, our overall results are disaggregated by variations in transportation spending of minority, single mother and young households. Transportation spending declined significantly between 2005 and the recession years. A large part of this was due to lower car-ownership levels and an overall increase in zero-car households. Those households that did acquire a car needed to make higher levels of down payment. They also paid higher interest rates compared to the pre-recession period. Minorities spent significantly less than non-minorities before the recession but the difference from non-minorities was not significant during the recession. Single mothers did not spend significantly less than other households overall; however, their spending level became significantly less during the recession and they were much more likely to become zero-car households during the recession. The cost of car-ownership increased drastically for young adult households and the share of carless young households greatly increased during the recession

Examining the relationship between different urbanization settings, smartphone use to access the Internet and trip frequencies

No abstract available

Factors Determining Transit Access by Car Owners: Implications for Intermodal Passenger Transportation Planning

Although walking is the dominant mode of transportation to transit facilities, there are strong variations by socio-demographics, geography, mode of public transit used and other factors. There is particularly a need to understand ways in which car owners who choose to use public transportation can be encouraged to carpool, walk or bicycle in the “first mile” and “last mile” of the transit trip, instead of driving. These considerations have implications for addressing cold start trips resulting from short drives to transit facilities, active transportation strategies that may benefit transit users who currently drive, and in deriving solutions for shared transportation such as bicycle-sharing and car-sharing programs. Using data collected in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, we investigate how the mode choice for the access trip to transit stations is related to costs, personal and household variables, trip characteristics, and neighborhood factors including crash frequencies, crime prevalence, neighborhood racial characteristics, population density, roadway density etc. for persons in car owning households. The results suggest that while much of the choice depends on personal and trip related variables, some neighborhood level factors as well as the provision of parking at transit stations have important relationships to mode choice that can influence built environment factors such as density and policy areas such as the provision and operation of transit parking facilities

A sketch planning methodology for determining interventions for bicycle and pedestrian crashes: an ecological approach

Bicycle and pedestrian safety planning have recently been gaining increased attention. With this focus, however, comes increased responsibilities for planning agencies and organizations tasked with evaluating and selecting safety interventions, a potentially arduous task given limited staff and resources. This study presents a sketch planning framework based on ecological factors that attempts to provide an efficient and effective method of selecting appropriate intervention measures. A Chicago case study is used to demonstrate how such a method may be applied

Incorporating weather information into real-time speed estimates: comparison of alternative models

Weather information is frequently requested by travelers. Prior literature indicates that inclement weather is one of the most important factors contributing to traffic congestion and crashes. In this paper, we propose a methodology to use real-time weather information to predict future speeds. The reason for doing so is to ultimately have the capability to disseminate weather-responsive travel time estimates to those requesting information. Using a stratified sampling technique, we select cases with different weather conditions (precipitation levels) and use a linear regression model (called the base model) and a statistical learning model (using Support Vector Machines for Regression) to predict 30-minute ahead speeds. One of the major inputs into a weather-responsive short-term speed prediction method is weather forecasts; however, weather forecasts may themselves be inaccurate. We assess the effects of such inaccuracies by means of simulations. The predictive accuracy of the SVR models show that statistical learning methods may be useful in bringing together streaming forecasted weather data and real-time information on downstream traffic conditions to enable travelers to make informed choices

Case studies of job access and reverse commute program: 2009-2010

This report presents perceptual, mobility and employment outcomes self-reported by 573 users of 26 transportation services funded by the Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) program. The respondents were predominantly low income with 42 percent reporting 2008 personal incomes less than $10,000 and two-thirds of the respondents earning$20,000 or less for the same year. Nearly half the respondents have no household vehicles. Nearly three in five respondents reported that their travel has become reliable and convenient after using the services. Workers using the services have benefitted from overall reductions in the cost of commuting to work. Close to 94 percent rated the service as being important or very important in keeping their jobs. Respondents also self-reported that the services allowed them to access a job with better pay or better working conditions, and to improve their skills. Both median hourly wages and median weekly earnings are reported to have increased since using the service for those workers who use the service to commute to work and were employed in the one-month period prior to starting use of the service. Alternative reasons may exist for these wage changes, including overall changes in the economic conditions of the locations where the services operate, as well as changes in the personal conditions of the workers that are unrelated to the JARC program in the period between starting use of the service and the time of the survey, such as graduation from job-training or school, residential relocation and so on. Because of the lack of a probability sample of services, the results cannot be generalized to the entire JARC program. Detailed case studies of the 26 services yield insights into the types of benefits that are being provided overall in these cases and the planning and programmatic environment within which they operate

Privacy in context : an evaluation of policy-based approaches to location privacy protection

Peer reviewedPostprin

Multi-sensor movement analysis for transport safety and health applications

Recent increases in the use of and applications for wearable technology has opened up many new avenues of research. In this paper, we consider the use of lifelogging and GPS data to extend fine-grained movement analysis for improving applications in health and safety. We first design a framework to solve the problem of indoor and outdoor movement detection from sensor readings associated with images captured by a lifelogging wearable device. Second we propose a set of measures related with hazard on the road network derived from the combination of GPS movement data, road network data and the sensor readings from a wearable device. Third, we identify the relationship between different socio-demographic groups and the patterns of indoor physical activity and sedentary behaviour routines as well as disturbance levels on different road settings

Location Privacy Preferences : A Survey-Based Analysis of Consumer Awareness, Trade-off and Decision-Making

Peer reviewedPostprin