THE ROLE OF ACCESSIBILITY IN BASIC TRANSPORTATION CHOICE BEHAVIOR

Accessibility measures reflect the level of service provided by transportation systems to various locations. Basic transportation choice behavior is defined to include those decisions of how many automobiles to own and how many trips to make by automobile and by public transit. Here, these decisions are assumed to be made jointly by urban households and are conditional upon residential location decisions. It is the purpose of this paper to explore the role of accessibility as a causal factor in such basic transportation choice behavior. An economic utility theory model of choice behavior is postulated in which the benefits from making trips to specific destinations are reflected by measures of destination attraction. Through determination of utility-maximizing trip frequencies, indirect utility functions are developed which include accessibility concepts. Behavioral implications of these concepts are proposed and contrasts are drawn to accessibility measures used in conventional segregated models of trip distribution, modal choice, and automobile ownership. Sensitivity analyses of alternative empirical definitions of accessibility in the choice model are conducted using data from the Detroit regional transportation and land use study - covering counties in southeastern Michigan. These analyses employ a multinomial logit estimation technique and focus on definitions of trip attraction. Results of these analyses indicate that more complicated attraction measures can be replaced by measures involving the proportion of either urban area propulation or urban area employment within a traffic analysis zone. Also, evidence is found that decision-makers in the case study area consider trips of up to 60 or even 90 minutes duration when evaluating accessibilities offered by alternative public and private transportation systems.(a) /TRRL/

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00494488
• Corporate Authors:

  Elsevier

  Radarweg 29
  Amsterdam,   Netherlands  1043 NX
• Authors:
  • Burns, L D
  • Golob, T F
• Publication Date: 1976-6

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 175-198
• Serial:
  • Transportation (Netherlands)
  • Volume: 5
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
  • ISSN: 0049-4488

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accessibility; Automobile ownership; Decision making; Land use; Level of service; Mathematical models; Modal split; Mode choice; Motor vehicles; Origin and destination; Ownership; Physical distribution; Population; Traffic; Transportation modes; Travel time; Trip distribution; Trip generation; Trip length; Urban areas
• Uncontrolled Terms: Selection
• Geographic Terms: United States
• Old TRIS Terms: Modal selection
• ITRD Terms: 9139: Accessibility; 2248: Decision process; 9016: Distribution (gen); 696: Journey purpose; 697: Journey time; 356: Land use; 653: Level of service; 6473: Mathematical model; 675: Modal split; 687: Origin destination traffic; 335: Population; 9072: Selection; 755: Traffic; 1145: Transport mode; 313: Urban area; 8122: USA; 315: Vehicle ownership
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00142157
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport and Road Research Laboratory (TRRL)
• Report/Paper Numbers: Analytic
• Files: ITRD, TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 4 1981 12:00AM