62 research outputs found
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 āfirst mileā and ālast mileā 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
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 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
Assessing the relationships between young adultsā travel and use of the internet over time
Although young peopleās mobility behaviors and their association with information and communications technologies (ICT) usage have been extensively researched, few studies have considered the relationship between changes in the use of ICT over time and young peopleās travel patterns. This paper explores how use of the Internet during adolescence/late childhood and the degree of change while transitioning from late childhood to adulthood is related to sustainable travel patterns in young adults. We are particularly interested in the mediating role that attitudes towards the environment have on the relationship between early age Internet use and sustainable travel in young adults. The use of rich, longitudinal datasets, the 2004 British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the Understanding Society Survey (Wave 4, 2012/14), allow an investigation of these attitudes and relationships for the same people from childhood to adulthood. We use structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the complex interrelationships between young adultsā Internet use over time, their travel modes and attitudes towards the environment, and other related behaviors. Our key finding is that consistently high levels of Internet use between adolescence and young adulthood is associated with the formation of environmental attitudes. While other factors not considered in this study might also have an effect, we find that these attitudes are indirectly but significantly associated with young adultsā sustainable travel patterns and behaviors
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 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
Investigating the temporal changes in the relationships between time spent on the internet and non-mandatory activity-travel time use
The amount of time we spend online has been increasing dramatically, influencing our daily travel and activity patterns. However, empirical studies on changes in the extent to which the amount of time spent online are related to changes in our activity and travel patterns are scarce, mainly due to a lack of available longitudinal or quasi-longitudinal data. This paper explores how the relationships between the time spent using the Internet, and the time spent on non-mandatory maintenance and leisure activities, have evolved over a decade. Maintenance activities include out-of-home activities such as shopping, banking, and doctor visits, while leisure activities include entertainment activities, visiting friends, sporting activities, and so forth. Our approach uses two datasets from two major cross-sectional surveys in Scotland, i.e. the 2005/06 Scottish Household Survey (SHS) and the 2015 Integrated Multimedia City Data (iMCD) Survey, which were similarly structured and formed. The multiple discreteācontinuous extreme value (MDCEV) model and difference-in-differences (DD) estimation are applied and integrated to examine how the relationships between the time spent on the Internet and travel have changed over time and the direction and magnitude of the changes. Our findings suggest that the complementary associations between Internet use and individualsā non-mandatory activity-travel time use are diminishing over time, whereas their substitutive associations are increasing. We additionally find that such temporal changes are significant in the case of those who spent moderate to high levels of time on the Internet (5 h or more online) per week
Evaluation of alternative data imputation strategies: a case study of motor carrier safety
This paper examines the effectiveness of different methods in imputing mileage incurred by commercial motor carriers (used as exposure measures in deriving safety indices of carriers), by using an administrative dataset on motor carriers. The objective of the paper is to assess the behavior of different imputation methods, using simulation. A series of odds-ratio tests confirm that the mileage data on motor carriers are not in fact ideally suited for data imputation approaches. However, the literature indicates that data imputation methods may be quite robust with respect to departures from the imputation model assumptions. In order to evaluate the level of robustness, samples of motor carriers are constructed by simulation to mimic different total "non-response" conditions and "item nonresponse" (with respect to mileage values of carriers). Four data imputation methods are then evaluated on these simulated samples including: Unconditional Mean Imputation (where mean values are substituted for missing values), Conditional Mean Imputation (regression-based imputation), Expectation Maximization algorithm with simulation (EMis) (an EM-based algorithm that includes a fast simulator for randomly imputing missing values based on estimated EM parameters) and a Data Augmentation based Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method]. Conclusions are drawn regarding the use of imputation in safety research
Analysis of cost-effectiveness of employment transportation services
The author examined cost-effectiveness of employment transportation
(ET) services funded by the Job Access and Reverse Commute program
of FTA in 2002. These services transport low-wage workers to
jobs. The author presented multiple sources of primary and administrative
data on users and programs in 23 ET sites. ET cost per ride measures
were compared with cost per ride measures of transit services
that were operating in the same area (called peer transit services). A
cost per user per year was estimated to determine the level of transportation
investments on the mobility of low-wage workers. On a per
ride basis, ET services cost more to deliver than did peer transit services,
but a wide variation existed in the level of investments and subsidies
among different types of users, areas, and types of service. The
median estimated cost per ET service user per year was similar to the
annual investment per recipient by several social and human services
and workforce development programs that supported low-income individuals
to achieve improved economic outcomes. ET annual expenditures
were the greatest for low-wage individuals who were traveling to
work and less so for low-income individuals who were traveling to job
training, to look for jobs, or to shop and make other discretionary trips.
Implications are drawn for human services transportation coordination
and for data and reporting requirements
Variations in employment transportation outcomes: role of site level factors
The paper examines two labour market outcomes experienced by users of federallyfunded
transportation services for low-wage workers in the United States, using primary data
from 23 locations. The propensity of users to be unemployed prior to using the service is found
to be related to the type of service (fixed-route/demand-response) and location type (urban/rural)
but not to aggregate local unemployment, variability in local unemployment rates or local
welfare policies. The propensity to earn higher wages is related to the type of employment
transportation service and location, and local unemployment levels. Results imply a need for
locally-derived, coordinated employment transportation plans
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