Nature of Weekend Travel by Urban Households

This paper describes how very little is known about weekend travel behavior in comparison to weekday travel in urban areas. Knowledge of weekend behavior is important for a number of purposes, including the prediction of weekend congestion, which is an emerging problem, especially in concentrated shopping districts. It is intuitively obvious that weekend travel is different than weekday travel. Weekends have a greater focus on shopping and leisure, with a lesser one on work and school journeys; heavier automobile usage but higher occupancies; and a mid-day peak rather than AM and PM peaks. However, there is little knowledge and no agreement on the size and scale of the differences between weekend and weekday travel behavior. This paper presents some basic descriptions of weekend travel behavior as revealed in a 2001 survey of household travel behavior in Calgary and in a similar 2000 survey in the San Francisco Bay Area. Analysis and comparison of these descriptions show that the weekend patterns differ from the corresponding weekday patterns in ways that are consistent with expectations, with the weekends containing more discretionary travel (more HB Shop and HB Social/Recreational, less HB Work and HB School) higher auto occupancies (consistent with larger family groups traveling together) and less transit use. Further, the weekday patterns in the two areas are broadly similar, as are the weekend patterns, and the differences between the weekday and the weekend patterns seem greater than the differences between areas.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9781551872064
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Association of Canada (TAC)

  401-1111 Prince of Wales Drive
  Ottawa, Ontario  Canada 
• Authors:
  • Hunt, John Douglas
  • McMillan, Paul
  • Stefan, Kevin
• Conference:
  • 2005 Annual Conference of the Transportation Association of Canada
  • Location: Calgary , Canada
  • Date: 2005-9-18 to 2005-9-21
• Publication Date: 2005

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: Transportation – Investing in Our Future

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automobile driving; Automobile travel; Peak hour traffic; Traffic congestion; Travel behavior; Urban areas; Urban development; Urban transportation; Weekdays; Weekends
• Geographic Terms: Calgary (Canada)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01041551
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9781551872064
• Files: TRIS, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 30 2007 1:31PM