Household Car Ownership in Relation to Residential and Work Location

Many households regard owning a car as a basic need. Also, car availability is gradually shifting from households to individuals. This paper examined the extent to which land use factors relating to the residential and work location affect households? car ownership decisions, in particular why particular households do not own a car, while others own more than one. The analysis looks explicitly at the interaction between the spouses, broken down into non-earners, single earners and dual earners. A series of logistic models based on detailed data were used to test the hypothesis. The analyses showed that the larger the density of the residential neighborhood and the smaller the distance from the station, the higher was the probability of the household not having a car. The converse was also true, that is to say, low density and a greater distance from the station encouraged the purchase of a second car. Looking at the role played by work, we found that dual earners were more likely to have a car and more likely to have two cars than single earners. However, land use characteristics of work locations do not play a significant role.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Maat, Kees
  • Timmermans, Harry J P
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2007-1-21 to 2007-1-25
• Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 13p
• Monograph Title: TRB 86th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automobile ownership; Automobile travel; Employment; Households; Land use; Land use planning; Residential areas; Work area; Work trips
• Uncontrolled Terms: Employment centers; Residential development
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01044581
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 07-0220
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Feb 8 2007 4:47PM