Does Dissonance between Desired and Current Residential Neighbourhood type Affect Travel Behaviour? An Empirical Assessment from the San Francisco Bay Area
Schwanen, Tim and Patricia L. Mokhtarian (2003) Does Dissonance between Desired and Current Residential Neighbourhood type Affect Travel Behaviour? An Empirical Assessment from the San Francisco Bay Area. Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, Presentation Series UCD-ITS-RP-03-18
Abstract: Proceedings of the European Transport Conference (ETC), October 8 - 10, 2003, Strasbourg, France
The research reported in this paper seeks to enhance our understanding of the complex relationship between residential location choice and travel behaviour. Unlike studies that model location and travel choices simultaneously, we compare the travel behaviour of individuals living in neighbourhoods matching their locational preferences with the travel patterns of those who reside in neighbourhoods that do not coincide with their preferences. For this, survey data are used from commuters in three neighbourhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area: the urban neighbourhood of North San Francisco and the (different types of) suburban neighbourhoods of Concord and Pleasant Hill. This paper scrutinises trip frequencies for available trip purposes other than commuting (whose frequency is assumed to be relatively impervious to land-use influences), namely work/school-related, grocery shopping, social/recreation/ entertainment, eating out, serving passenger and 'other' trips. When the differences between mismatched and well-matched respondents within neighbourhoods are larger than those between neighbourhoods, this suggests that residential self-selection is an important factor explaining travel behaviour, and should be accounted for when analysing the association between urban form and travel behaviour.
The relationship between residential neighbourhood mismatch and travel behaviour will be explored in more detail in the following section. The paper then proceeds to a description of the data available for this study, as well as definitions of the variables used in the empirical analysis. Section 5 presents descriptive results and section 6 ordered probit models. The paper concludes with a summary of the results.