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Traditional trip distribution processes that rely heavily on gravity models fail to capture how the characteristics of individuals or the heterogeneity in the attributes of attraction zones...

Household, journey-to-work, and workplace dynamics intersect and are diverse and changing. These intersections contribute to gendered, classed, and racialized divisions of labour at home, at work, and on the road. Research on journeys-to-work has generally focused on journeys that happen daily, follow similar routes, at similar times, and involve travel to a single, fixed workplace. Time geography has shared some of this focus in its attention to fixity and constraints that shape these kinds of movements in time and space. However, change and disruption in home lives, journeys-to-work and in the location and scheduling of work are widespread. Feminist intersectional rhythmanalysis may be better equipped to address these. This article draws on insights from a body of Canadian research captured here in the form of 5 vignettes that describe intersecting home, work, environmental and employment-related geographical mobility (E-RGM) rhythms and some of their consequences across diverse groups, sectors ...

I’ve always liked a good manifesto. That little known text by Marx and Engels was a favourite read on my bus journey to work as I trundled my way from leafy suburbs through not so leafy inner-city ...

In the southern German city of Tubingen, a ‘city of short distances’ planning model has been applied to try to reduce the need to travel through the co-location of employment space with housing—a s...

The Selandra Rise master-planned estate (MPE) in Melbourne’s south-east growth corridor was designed to create a “healthy and engaged community” through the provision of parks, physical activity opportunities and community facilities. A 5 year longitudinal study researched the impact on residents. Over one third of residents spent 2 to 3 h per day commuting and high levels of dissatisfaction with commutes were found. Longer commute times were associated with poor physical activity and weight outcomes. The paper concludes that provisions for health and wellbeing within an MPE are insufficient when opportunities for local employment are limited and broader locational, connectivity and transport disadvantages are not addressed.

The iconic image of Rosa Parks sitting at the front of a bus documents the most famous commute in history. Rosa Parks was traveling home from work when she refused to give her seat to a white passe...

A study was conducted in the UK, as part of the New Dynamics of Ageing Working Late project, of the journey to work among 1215 older workers (age groups 45-49, 50-55, 56-60 and 60 + ). The aim was to identify problems or concerns that they might have with their commute, strategies that have been adopted to address them, and the role that employers can play to assist them. Follow-up interviews with 36 employees identified many strategies for assisting with the problems of journeys to work, ranging from car share and using public transport to flexible working and working some days from home. Further interviews with a sample of 12 mainly larger companies showed that employers feel a responsibility for their workers’ commute, with some offering schemes to assist them, such as adjusting work shift timings to facilitate easier parking. The research suggests that the journey to work presents difficulties for a significant minority of those aged over 45, including issues with cost, stress, health, fatigue and journey time. It may be possible to reduce the impact of these difficulties on employee decisions to change jobs or retire by assisting them to adopt mitigating strategies. It does not appear that the likelihood of experiencing a problem with the journey to work increases as the employee approaches retirement; therefore, any mitigating strategy is likely to help employees of all ages. These strategies have been disseminated to a wider audience through an online resource at www.workinglate.org.

The ability to access places of opportunity is dependent on the land use distribution, the transportation network connecting homes and activity sites, and sociodemographic-dependent mobility. Accessibility indicators are used as a planning tool to capture accessibility variations in the assessment and development of social, land use, and transportation policy. A number of metrics have been proposed to understand patterns of unequal access that typically fall under overlapping three pairs of contrasting notions of accessibility: place- versus person-based, normative versus positive, and potential versus actual. Variations in accessibility for different people in different locations might arise from the dynamic nature of the people–space–transportation triad. What is less explored is how these dynamics, resulting from the confluence of changing urban structures, diverging mobility resources, and socioeconomic transformations, might reveal unusual accessibility experiences based on unexpected travel time and...

Fieldwork has long been fundamental to human geography; however, increasingly unreceptive institutional environments have led to a decline in fieldwork in undergraduate human geography programs. We argue that mobility research presents an opportunity to reinvigorate the undergraduate field trip in human geography. We report on a second-year field course to Noosa, Australia, that blends new technologies with conventional survey techniques to capture data on a spectrum of human spatial behaviour. Over the course of a single weekend, students collect GPS traces of tourist mobility, survey businesses on the journey to work, collect residential migration histories and trace population dynamics on Noosa beach. Over the three years the course has been running, students have constructed a large repository of data on this Australian mobility hotspot, of which we report highlights. Results from standardised student course evaluations confirm the pedagogical value of these initiatives for human geography und...

In 2004, Mimi Sheller highlighted that emotions and sensations play a key part in sustaining the dominant culture of automobility. Sheller’s work ‘Automotive Emotions’ has been followed by a decade of technological, social and cultural developments, many of which have enhanced the way we dwell in, and seek comfort from, the private car. Ten years on we are still ‘feeling the car’. This paper draws on empirical research on the journey to work in a large auto-dependent city. It explores the function of sensory experience in sustaining automobility through contemporary impracticalities such as constraints on carbon and increased congestion. A practice theory frame is used to unpick this role and feeling the car is positioned as a subtle yet integral element cementing the practice of driving.

The ability of targeted infrastructure to effect change in travel behaviour is axiomatic in transport planning but rarely does the opportunity arise to directly quantify the impacts of infrastructure on the travel behaviour of a discrete urban population. This article explores the impact of the Eleanor Schonell ‘Green’ Bridge on the travel and residential distribution of staff and students of the University of Queensland (UQ) St Lucia Campus, one of the largest daily traffic generators in the Brisbane metropolitan region. We examine the volume and modal split of trips to and from the campus prior to and post construction of the bridge in 2006. We then explore shifts in the residential distribution of staff and students over the same period according to the accessibility and socio-economic status of the neighbourhoods in which they are resident. We show that opening of the bridge was followed by a measurable improvement in transport sustainability at the campus, as well as a significant redistribution of s...

This article estimates the Value of Commuting Time (VOCT) among Swedish males in an empirical on-the-job search model. It uses a large sample of employee-establishment linked data obtained from administrative registers. The sample lacks information on mode choice for the journey to work. We therefore estimate a mode choice model on another sample and use this model to link the administrative data to the relevant set of travel times, costs and distances. The VOCT is found to be 1.8 times the net hourly wage rate in the sample. The relatively high estimate results from a high VOCT among cohabiting men.

This paper reports on two new spatial flow tools with the capacity to visualise change over time. The first tool incorporates a series of flow-orientated metrics, including flow direction and intensity; the second tool includes a number of additional features including the representation of both inward and outward flows and the most dominant direction for up to three time periods. Both tools can be applied to map a wide range of flow-orientated data describing human and environmental phenomena. Using journey-to-work (JTW) data as a case study data set the capacity of the two spatial flow tools is demonstrated. Both tools are developed to extend the functionality of ESRI's ArcGIS software and are available for public download via their online forum.

In Melbourne, Australia, there is currently interest in charging a levy on parking to reduce congestion and to encourage use of sustainable transport alternatives. This research aims to examine employees’ perceptions of their modal choice during journey to work, and considers the role of parking availability in modal choice, including whether people can be shifted to public transport. To investigate this, a survey was conducted in the CBD region of Melbourne consisting of 72 car and 91 public transport travellers. Fifty-three percent of car users said that they would not use cars if there were no parking, with 35% responding that they would shift to trains. The analysis suggests there is a link between reducing parking supply per employee, and promotion of sustainable travel modes. The results suggest a lack of understanding by policy makers about the wider effects of parking, with parking actions commonly contradicting achievement of wider transport and planning objectives for Melbourne. Further...

This article contributes to the growing research and policy interest on the challenges of achieving socially sustainable transportation. It analyses the determinants of transport mode use for journey to work among population groups considered as vulnerable to mobility and accessibility limitations. Using the 2001 Census of Canada, multilevel multinomial logistic regression models were estimated to assess the personal, social and economic factors that affect travel mode use of low-income persons in their journey to work in urban areas in Ontario and Quebec. The findings show important differences in the factors associated with car driving and public transit, between genders, and according to income level, educational achievement, household structure and immigration status. Furthermore, it is found that significant factors affecting travel mode use among low-income people in various urban areas are differentiated by province. The results point towards a geographic-based and balanced promotion of public and private mobility programmes and policies to address transport needs of low-income workers.

This study quantified and visualised oil vulnerability (OV) across Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) of South East Queensland (SEQ), and its changes between 2001 to 2006, with specific focus on Master Planned Estates (MPEs). A classification chart was developed to categorise different types of OV, and to identify SLAs that showed significant change in their level of OV over the period from 2001 to 2006. Our findings are that non-metropolitan SLAs exhibited significantly higher OV due to: (i) the lack of alternatives to private motor vehicle use; (ii) longer road network distances travelled on average; and (iii) a generally lower socioeconomic status associated with these areas. Metropolitan SLAs had consistently lower OV due to: (i) a shorter average commuting distance; (ii) more comprehensive non-motorised access to public transport; and (iii) a generally higher socioeconomic status. SLAs containing large MPEs also proved to be more vulnerable due to their relatively high automobile dependence, limited non-...

Through quantative analysis of JTW data available in the census of population and households we add to the current debate on traffice congestion in the Ipswich-Brisbane corridor.

Among others, one commonly identified negative consequence of urban sprawl is an increase in the length of the journey to work. However, there has been more discussion of this than serious scrutiny, hence the relationship between urban sprawl and commuting patterns, especially at the intraurban level, remains unclear. Using the 2000 Census Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) data for two Southeastern metropolitan areas, this research investigates the extent to which workers living in sprawl areas commute farther to work than those living in higher density areas. The analysis of variance confirms that workers commuting from sprawl areas to urban areas experience a longer commute in terms of time as well as mileage, though this varies when workplace and home locations are taken into account. However, multivariate statistical results suggest that there are limits to the utility of sprawl as a predictor of travel behavior compared to workers' socioeconomic characteristics, as other factors appear to be equally or more important.

Low density suburban development and excessive use of automobiles are associated with serious urban and environmental problems. Master planned development suggests itself as a possible palliative for these ills. This study examines the patterns and dynamics of movement in a selection of master planned estates in Australia with the aim of developing new approaches for assessing the containment of travel within planned development. A geographical information systems methodology is used to determine regional journey-to-work patterns and travel containment rates. Factors that influence self-containment patterns are estimated with a regression model. The findings of the pilot study demonstrate that the proposed model is a useful starting point for a systematic and detailed analysis of self-containment in master planned estates.

In modern society, spatial mobility is highly valued with its relationship to individual freedom (freedom to travel anywhere at anytime, freedom to choose one's relationships, freedom of residentia...

This article considers the inter-relationship between on-street parking and choice of mode for journeys to work in the Scottish city of Edinburgh. This city is typical of many in that its centre has significant on-street parking controls but, beyond a radius of 1 to 1 1/2 miles (1.5 to 2.5 km) from the centre, there are no controls and commuter parking on-street is commonplace. The article reviews the relevant literature, and then considers the results of a survey undertaken of Edinburgh city centre employees in order to ascertain their parking habits and likely response to the extension of existing on-street parking controls. The article concludes that the results are transferable to other cities but that the scale of the impacts in each will be related to site specific factors, particularly the demand for residential parking space on-street in areas close to the city centre.

This paper brings the debate on sustainable transport policy into direct confrontation with the embodied practice of cycling in a highly urbanized environment. Using the example of a regular journey to work the author undertook in Birmingham, UK during the summer of 2003, Lees' notion of a more performative approach to understanding architecture is extended to a performance of the wider city. Tracing in detail the practice of this journey, the paper uses the notion of affect to highlight the sheer physicality of the bike ride and how the city is thus remade through the cyclist's experiences. This performative understanding is contrasted with more traditional understandings of the city, illustrating how the two reinforce each other. Ultimately the question is posed of whether the thrills and chills of urban cycling in the UK will leave it as a marginalized transport mode for the foreseeable future, despite noises from policy makers about using cycling to solve problems of urban congestion and sustainabilit...

Prospect theoretic hypotheses about the value function are considered in the context of morning commutes. After a review of the formulations of utility functions in the past analyses of commuter departure time choice, this study adopts a formulation where the desirability of an arrival time at work is determined based on decision frames defined in terms of reference points. Probit models are applied to the data collected from randomly selected commuters of a bedroom community in the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe metropolitan area of Japan, in order to estimate value functions empirically. Two alternative decision frames are compared based on the results of estimation and the empirical validity of the basic properties of the value function is examined.

This paper proposes that the theoretically more appropriate approach for modelling mode choice decisions for the journey to work by workers residing in two-worker households is through the development of a choice model at the household level that takes into account the decisions of both workers. There are at least two reasons for this. First, in the majority of cases the model estimation data comes from household travel surveys, which have the household as the sampling unit and not the individual worker. The majority of households in urban areas these days have two or more workers. Thus once a household is selected into the sample all its working members are necessarily selected as well. The idea of a random sample therefore holds at the level of the household and not the individual worker. Second, workers from the same household in the long run select modes for their journeys to work so as to minimize their combined disutility to travel as opposed to independently minimizing their respective individual d...

Reliance on motorised transport has contributed to increasingly sedentary lifestyles and serious traffic congestion. This paper reports on a postal survey conducted in Glasgow which aimed to establish current modes of transport to work and investigate employee attitudes towards ‘active commuting’ defined as walking or cycling for part or all of the journey to work. Results indicate that the car was the predominant mode of transport. One-fifth of those who lived less than one mile and one-third of those who lived between one and two miles from work commonly drove. Recommendations include traffic planning measures to increase provision of dedicated pedestrian/cycle routes, workplace initiatives to promote active commuting as well as greater priority for walking and cycling in transport and health policies.

Journeys to work form a significant proportion of all car journeys and employer transport plans have been advocated as a way to manage the transport needs of workers in order to contain the level of car trips and, therefore, emissions and other negative effects. A questionnaire survey and focus group interviews were used to evaluate the success of an employer transport plan implemented by the University of Sheffield in September 1997. The policy was associated with a marginal (7%) reduction in car use and promoted a limited increase in travel diversity. An objection to the principle of paying to park at work and ineligibility for a permit both deterred car use. The policy caused a re-evaluation of the journey to work. Nevertheless, a number of factors worked against switches in behaviour, particularly employees' perceptions of the university's motivation for introducing the plan and attitudes towards car use and public transport. Disincentives to car use need to be much more significant to persuade more e...

A number of studies supports the ineffectiveness of public transportation to connect low‐income individuals with entry‐level employment. The transportation obstacles faced by welfare recipients to find and maintain employment continue to persist. Focussing on the example of two programs implemented in suburban Washington, D.C., this study explores the question of what type of transportation services best support the welfare‐to‐work goals and whether they instill a sense of self‐reliance and esteem among participants. In addition, this study used the data to develop spatio — temporal travel pattern diagrams, which suggest that transportation may change the psychology of transit for recipients. The authors recommend that service providers give greater attention to outreach services and ensure better coordination between transit, childcare and job training programs. The paper also includes a number of suggestions to improve both skill and spatial mismatch.

The paper examines critically the contention that electronic communications will contribute to reducing travel through trip-substitution. Using examples drawn from a variety of forms of work organisation being affected by new technologies, collectively referred to as “teleworking”, it attempts to demonstrate the complexity of the relationship between travel and electronic communication. The forms of teleworking consideied here are: electronic homeworking; mobile working; spatially-dispersed teamworking; and telephone call-centres. The paper concludes that the trip-substitution assumption is unrealistic, with a range of markedly different travel outcomes identified. Further, it contends that the empirical basis for formulating policies in this field is currently inadequate.

Women form an increasingly large proportion of both the populations of the US and of European countries. This, together with the changing role of women in modern society, has important potential implications for transport policy. Looked at from the micro level, women have different travel patterns from men, reflecting factors such as lower labour force participation, lower income levels, their traditional role in the family, the decision-making structure within households, the current age distribution and physical vulnerability. The situation is changing and this will have implications on transport demands. The female population is also, on average, getting older. Traditional travel modelling spends much time on modal attributes, such as speed and cost, but for many women this may not be the central issue. Security is often important. Standard traffic models only implicitly allow for gender (e.g. travel time is valued different from work and non-work trips). With the increased complexity of life styles an...

The daily journey to work is ubiquitous in American life. Portraying commuting behavior graphically at the subcounty level, however, has been hampered by technical obstacles. With desktop GIS and new analytical tools, the spatial particulars of commuting can be given clarity. This paper explores the use of a spatial statistic, the mean weighted direction of journey-to-work flows, to aggregate and depict commuting at the census tract level for the purpose of delineating metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. Using 1990 census data for Iowa, tract-to-tract flow vectors and resultant vectors are calculated and drawn for each census tract, and a set of functional areas for the state is produced. The research suggests that the concept of commuting directionality is a community characteristic requiring further attention. Directionality may be a useful component in a census-tract-level national settlement classification system made possible with disaggregated data and annual updates through the American Communi...

Employer transport plans (ETPs) are increasingly seen by transport planners as one of potential means to manage the demand for private transport. Such plans seek to reduce trips to work by car by providing, through individual employers, a targeted, integrated package of incentives and disincentives to influence commuters' choice of mode for travel to and from the workplace. This paper makes a critical assessment of the potential of ETPs to reduce trips by car to and from workplaces. Drawing on US, UK and Dutch experience, it argues that only a minority of employers will voluntarily implement ETPs because they will be seen by the majority as an unnecessary and potentially costly diversion from their normal business activities. It further argues that, for implementation to be widespread, regulation may be required, but that this could be unpopular and difficult to enforce. Instead it urges the adoption of an approach which uses fiscal measures to encourage organizations to adopt ETPs.

This paper presents an investigation into the role that relative Level‐of‐Service (LOS) characteristics of travel modes play in explaining heterogeneity of work‐trip mode split. The LOS characteristics examined in this study include cost and travel time of modes. The investigation is carried out primarily through a comparative analysis between mode split models with and without LOS measures. A total of four models are developed, three of which are binary trees constructed using a non‐parametric procedure known as Classification and Regression Trees (CART). The results show that relative LOS characteristics explain a modest portion of the mode split heterogeneity. The analysis detects correlation between LOS measures and other explanatory variables. The results also show that mode split appears to vary with relative LOS at a higher rate for trips in corridors where the transit service is superior to or comparable with the auto service than for trips in corridors better served by auto. In contrast, auto own...

Through estimation of a discrete choice model of residential location, this study argues that commute time remains a dominant determinant of residential location at the regional scale, and that provision of affordable housing near employment concentrations can influence residential location decisions for low-to-moderate-income, single-worker households. But the significance of jobs-housing balance is not in reducing congestion; even when successful, such policies will have little impact on average travel speeds. Rather, the relaxation of suburban regulation that could lead to improved matches between home and workplace is seen as enhancing the range of households' choices about residence and transportation.

The prevailing practice in travel demand modelling is to estimate disaggregate models of mode choice with data from the most recent cross‐sectional travel survey available on an urban area for forecasting purposes. Very often, however, most urban areas have available data from older cross‐sectional surveys, which are often entirely ignored in the modelling effort. This paper explores the possibility of pooling data from two independent cross‐sectional travel surveys on the same urban area for model estimation and forecasting by applying a model structure which allows for transfer‐bias, referred to as the joint context estimation procedure. This procedure consists of joint, full information maximum likelihood estimation of a related set of logit choice models for the contexts which are based on the following two assumptions: (1) differences in model parameter values between contexts are expressible in terms of differences in the contexts’ alternative‐specific constants and overall scale of the contexts’ ut...

(1997). Cycling on the Journey to Work: Analysis of Socioeconomic Variables from the UK 1991 Population Census Samples of Anonymised Records. Planning Practice & Research: Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 251-261.

To date the transport solutions seeking to reduce traffic impacts have tended to focus on city/town centres. There has, however, been a substantial increase in traffic levels both in and to suburban areas and the location of large employment sites in such areas has had a significant impact. The typical policy response to traffic in these areas has been the introduction of traffic calming measures and residents’ parking but such policies do not address the fundamental issue of travel generation and its consequences (including parking). Major employers should have an important role to play in the consideration of more sensible and sustainable uses of the car including the promotion of alternatives to car use. Using a case study at a large institution in Oxford this paper examines findings from a survey into staff travel behaviour in order to identify how staff currently behave. It explores the potential for transport and non‐transport solutions to reduce car‐based journeys to work and concludes tha...

(1997). The Journey to Work: A Historical Methodology. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History: Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 97-109.

It has been well documented that women tend to work closer to home than men. One interpretation of this finding has been that women face more spatially constrained labor markets than men, and these constraints are thought to be a factor in the gender gap in earnings. A recent study of Tel Aviv, Israel, by Moshe Semyonov and Noah Lewin-Epstein (1991) also found that working women clearly tend to hold employment more in the vicinity of their homes than do men. The observed deficits in earnings by employed women were thought to be exchanged for compliance with traditional gender-role expectations. Our study cross-validates key portions of the Semyonov and Lewin-Epstein study for the United States by examining the location of labor markets and their relationship to gender inequality in earnings in the 1988 wave of the NLSY panel database. Using annual earnings as the dependent variable and other similarly defined variables, we parallel their multiple regression analysis. The time-to-work reports of NLSY panel members are used to assess their commuting behavior and the results of this analysis are compared across four types of residential locations: rural, small urban, suburban, and large central city. We modestly confirm the gender inequalities in earnings produced by differential commuting behaviors for men and women but cannot fully generalize them to a broad set of residentially defined labor markets. For instance, women in suburban settings do have a higher return in earnings from time spent commuting but this effect is not significantly higher than the same returns for suburban men. A somewhat surprising negative effect of commuting time on the earnings of suburban women and men was also observed. We suggest further research on this problem involving the “perceived constraint’ hypothesis to explain the commuting gap between men and women.

In recent years, there has been a chorus of calls to redesign America's suburbs so that they are less dependent on automobile access and more conducive to transit riding, walking, and bicycling. This article compares commuting characteristics of transit-oriented and auto-oriented suburban neighborhoods, in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Southern California. Transit neighborhoods averaged higher densities and had more gridded street patterns compared to their nearby counterparts with auto-oriented physical designs. Neighborhoods were matched in terms of median incomes and, to the extent possible, transit service levels, to control for these effects. For both metropolitan areas, pedestrian modal shares and trip generation rates tended to be considerably higher in transit than in auto-oriented neighborhoods. Transit neighborhoods had decidedly higher rates of bus commuting only in the Bay Area. Islands of transit-oriented neighborhoods in a sea of freeway-oriented suburbs seem to have negligible ...

Sparsely populated areas in present-day North West Europe are almost automatically associated with demographic decline, in particular when studied on a local level. An image of an urn-like age pyramid, bulging near the top and with a slim base, presents itself to the observer. But it should not be forgotten that such a situation, with more deaths than births, is a long-term elTect of years and years of net out-migration. The analysis of geographic mobility thus becomes more important than fertility and mortality stud- ies. We want to understand how the age pyramid has become an urn.

It is now well established in geographic research that women commute shorter distances to work than men. This paper attempts to explore the common features that have emerged from the last two decades of research in various places within a metropolitan context. Three main sets of factors that may cause women to commute shorter distances are recognized: residence, employment, and transportation—each containing both social and spatial aspects. The analysis is centered around the spatial aspect. Most research on employed women seems to be characterized by distinguishing between the central city and the suburbs and thus the conclusions focus mostly upon this. An international comparison of different places shows that gender differences in commuting almost always are greater in the suburbs, from the point of view of both residential and employment dispersions. Directions for future research are suggested. Comparable methodologies will enable the inclusion of additional cities and will broaden the comparison. Th...

The exurbs are currently home to sixty million Americans, and may be home to more people than urban, suburban, or rural areas are by early in the next century. Planners may be unprepared to address the special needs and challenges presented by the exurbs, because the tools that planners use to manage cities, suburbs, and rural areas may be inappropriate. Before planners can respond adequately to the challenge of exurban development, they must first understand who lives there and why. Using a case study of the Portland, Oregon area, we find that although ex-urbanites have many socio-economic characteristics in common with suburbanites, they prefer a different lifestyle. This lifestyle includes rural amenities, large house lots, and longer drives to work. We also find substantial differences between exurbanites living in small towns and those living in rural areas.

The relationship between women's domestic labor and employment in the paid labor force is central to current debates about gender inequities in occupations and incomes. Recent studies of gender differences in commuting argue that women reduce the journey to work to accommodate the demands of family responsibilities. The empirical evidence, however, is mixed. Equal numbers of studies have reported significant andinsignificant relationships between average commuting times and various measures of domestic responsibilities. Few of these studies have examined the implications of parenthood and, particularly, single parenthood, for the commuting patterns of women from various racial and ethnic backgrounds. Women who are single parents may work closer to home than other women because of their substantial domestic responsibilities. On the other hand, as sole wage earners, single parents may travel long times to obtain better paid employment. Using information about a sample of women in the New York Consolidated M...

A rapid growth in suburban population over the past two decades has inevitably turned once lightly‐traveled rural roads to heavy traffic highways which require considerable investment for upgrading. However, such a need was not recognized in time to develop suburban‐oriented traffic management strategies, and consequently led to unprecedented levels of suburban congestion. Mobility improvement in suburbs has thus become one of the most pressing transportation issues. In response to increasing public concern on this issue, a flurry of reports and articles have been produced to explore various short‐ and long‐term strategies. However, a vital aspect, namely, a fundamental understanding of suburban commuting behavior, has not been adequately addressed. In this paper, an exploratory analysis is performed to characterize suburban commuting behavior based on a survey conducted at Parkway Center complex in suburban Dallas, Texas. Several key travel characteristic variables are identified in the exploratory analy...

In Toronto in recent years, commuting trips to the Central Area have not risen as rapidly as would be expected from the growth in downtown office space. Various explanations have been suggested. In this article, we show that the rising residential population in the Central Area has served to reduce inbound commuting trips below what they otherwise would be. For reasons discussed in the article, it is normally difficult to quantify the effect on commuting of downtown housing growth or population intensification. By recognizing these difficulties and testing our results in various ways, we have been able to estimate that, on average since 1976, for each 100 additional dwelling units in the Central Area there has been a reduction of approximately 120 inbound trips during the morning three-hour rush period. This finding indicates the potential for the use of housing policy as a land-use planning instrument, one that could help mediate the conflict between continued commercial office growth downtown a...

URBAN TRANSPORTATION AS A PUBLIC SERVICE (GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE FOR HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION AND MASS TRANSIT) THE JOURNEY TO WORK, INCLUDING WOMEN'S COMMUTING PATTERNS

The first part of the article presents and discusses recent development trends in population and settlement structure in western Norway, emphasizing the increasing and changing role of the urban and central-place system. The second part deals more specifically with the interrelationships between population and places of residence on the one hand and places of work and journey to work (commuting) on the other, regression analyses being the main research tool. The models are tested on commuting data from the Stavanger area. In the third part the relationships are tested empirically by looking at some concrete examples from the Bergen area where three island municipalities have been directly connected with the city of Bergen through the construction of bridges.