TY - JOUR
T1 - Quantifying the relative contribution of factors to household vehicle miles of travel
AU - Singh, Abhilash C.
AU - Astroza, Sebastian
AU - Garikapati, Venu M.
AU - Pendyala, Ram
AU - Bhat, Chandra R.
AU - Mokhtarian, Patricia L.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the comments provided by three anonymous reviewers that helped improve the paper. This research was partially supported by the Center for Teaching Old Models New Tricks (TOMNET) as well as the Data-Supported Transportation Operations and Planning (D-STOP) Center, both of which are Tier 1 University Transportation Centers sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation . The authors are grateful to Lisa Macias for her help in formatting this document. The authors are solely responsible for the contents of the paper.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2018/8
Y1 - 2018/8
N2 - Household vehicle miles of travel (VMT) has been exhibiting a steady growth in post-recession years in the United States and has reached record levels in 2017. With transportation accounting for 27 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, planning professionals are increasingly seeking ways to curb vehicular travel to advance sustainable, vibrant, and healthy communities. Although there is considerable understanding of the various factors that influence household vehicular travel, there is little knowledge of their relative contribution to explaining variance in household VMT. This paper presents a holistic analysis to identify the relative contribution of socio-economic and demographic characteristics, built environment attributes, residential self-selection effects, and social and spatial dependency effects in explaining household VMT production. The modeling framework employs a simultaneous equations model of residential location (density) choice and household VMT generation. The analysis is performed using household travel survey data from the New York metropolitan region. Model results showed insignificant spatial dependency effects, with socio-demographic variables explaining 33 percent, density (as a key measure of built environment attributes) explaining 12 percent, and self-selection effects explaining 11 percent of the total variance in the logarithm of household VMT. The remaining 44 percent remains unexplained and attributable to omitted variables and unobserved idiosyncratic factors, calling for further research in this domain to better understand the relative contribution of various drivers of household VMT.
AB - Household vehicle miles of travel (VMT) has been exhibiting a steady growth in post-recession years in the United States and has reached record levels in 2017. With transportation accounting for 27 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, planning professionals are increasingly seeking ways to curb vehicular travel to advance sustainable, vibrant, and healthy communities. Although there is considerable understanding of the various factors that influence household vehicular travel, there is little knowledge of their relative contribution to explaining variance in household VMT. This paper presents a holistic analysis to identify the relative contribution of socio-economic and demographic characteristics, built environment attributes, residential self-selection effects, and social and spatial dependency effects in explaining household VMT production. The modeling framework employs a simultaneous equations model of residential location (density) choice and household VMT generation. The analysis is performed using household travel survey data from the New York metropolitan region. Model results showed insignificant spatial dependency effects, with socio-demographic variables explaining 33 percent, density (as a key measure of built environment attributes) explaining 12 percent, and self-selection effects explaining 11 percent of the total variance in the logarithm of household VMT. The remaining 44 percent remains unexplained and attributable to omitted variables and unobserved idiosyncratic factors, calling for further research in this domain to better understand the relative contribution of various drivers of household VMT.
KW - Built environment effects
KW - Demographic effects
KW - Residential self-selection
KW - Social-spatial dependence
KW - Vehicle miles of travel (VMT)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85046334962&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85046334962&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.trd.2018.04.004
DO - 10.1016/j.trd.2018.04.004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85046334962
VL - 63
SP - 23
EP - 36
JO - Transportation Research, Part D: Transport and Environment
JF - Transportation Research, Part D: Transport and Environment
SN - 1361-9209
ER -