Location effects on trip generation: Evidence from Madrid metropolitan area.

Abstract

The relationship between land use and travel patterns has been studied in a number of cases, using several methods - aggregate and disaggregate approaches - and different focuses – trip frequency, automobile use, vehicle miles travelled and so on. Definitely, travel is generated by the need to undertake activities and obtain services, and there is a general consensus that urban components affect travel behaviour. However researches are still needed to better understand which components of the travel behaviour are affected most and by which of the urban components. This paper studies the effect on trip frequency, public transport and private vehicle dependency of socio-economic, transport and land use characteristics. In particular the land use is defined in terms of type of neighbourhoods and types of dwellers. Methodological attributes are also included to test the effect of the type of survey, namely trip-based versus activity-based survey. Using a data-base from a survey conducted in 2006 and 2007 in Madrid, ordered probit models are estimated to analyse the effect of neighbourhood type and socio-economic characteristics on trip frequency, public transport and private vehicle use. Our results show that the characteristics of the neighbourhoods are important to explain the trip frequency but the effect is quite different depending on the mode used for the trips. Our results confirm that living in low density increases the propensity to use the private vehicles, while it does not seem to have an impact on the propensity to make internal trips, i.e. with origin and destination in the same area. We also found that there is a positive correlation between the number of trips and the number of stops but only if the trips are made with the private vehicles while are not significant for the public transport.