Aditjandra PT. The Relationship Between Urban Form and Travel Behaviour: A Micro-analysis in Tyne and Wear [PhD Thesis]. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences Newcastle University, 2008. Copyright: © The author, 2008. Date deposited: 07/07/2015 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License Newcastle University ePrints - eprint.ncl.ac.uk The relationship between urban form and travel behaviour: A micro-analysis in Tyne and Wear By: Paulus Teguh Aditjandra M.Sc., Ing., S.T.S. A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences Newcastle University The United Kingdom November 2008 Abstract A greater understanding of the impact of neighbourhood design on travel behaviour has long been sought as a way to shape sustainable mobility practice. The very reason for looking at this practice is to meet the future demand of settlements, which will improve air quality, reduce congestion, and create liveable neighbourhoods and reduce dependency on the private car. Whilst there is an extensive American literature on this subject, this is limited in applicability to European or British practice since the urban form variables, such as street layout and levels of car use in all areas, have a different scale. This study is concerned with the British experience of the relationship between neighbourhood design and travel behaviour. To this end a questionnaire has been developed to measure travel patterns, built environment characteristics and attitudes/preferences towards the current perception of residents about how their neighbourhood influences their travel and to identify and measure the causal relationship between the neighbourhood design and travel behaviour. ii Data from British Census 2001 and Google EarthTM have been used to identify and to control socio-economic variants of ten carefully selected neighbourhoods which characterise five traditional and five suburban neighbourhoods within the Tyne and Wear metropolitan conurbation. From the captured data of 716 respondents, this study explores the causation between perceived and preferred neighbourhood and travel attitude characteristics and reported vehicle miles driven (VMD). The results show that in the causal relationships, differences in reported VMD can be explained in order by socio-economic variables, travel attitudes, preferred neighbourhood characteristics, perceived neighbourhood characteristics and land-use type with traditional neighbourhoods being more sensitive to changes in VMD as compared to the suburban neighbourhoods. This suggests that land-use policy to promote sustainable mobility in traditional neighbourhoods would be more effective than if applied to the suburban counterpart. This study also explores the issue of residential self-selection where individuals or households choose their neighbourhood because of its neighbourhood characteristics. These are examined by the use and analysis of quasi-longitudinal data from respondents of the survey who had moved home in the previous eight years. The changes in level of car use, public transport use and walking are measured relative to the changes in neighbourhood characteristics for these respondents. The results show that some changes in neighbourhood characteristics are sensitive to changes in walking and public transport use, but less sensitive to changes in car driving. This finding suggests that the land-use policy designed to promote sustainable mobility practice through neighbourhood design could be used to generate more walking and more public transport use. Even though there is less evidence of reducing car travel, such a policy is likely to give individuals the choice to drive less and use public transport and walking more. iii Acknowledgement This thesis is dedicated to the people of Newcastle upon Tyne who have been very nice, friendly and supportive throughout my PhD career. I would like to thank a number of people for their help in completion of this thesis. My supervisory team, Dr. John D. Nelson and Dr. Corinne Mulley have been a constant source of academic and moral support. But thanks especially to Dr. Mulley for your dedication to the cause. You’re a champion. Thanks also to my external examiner Dr. David Banister from Oxford University to broaden my knowledge and even sharpen my understanding of my research findings. Thanks to Dr. Geoff Vigar as my internal examiner and for your help in shaping my early planning idea and for introducing Dr. John Cram who crucially advised on my questionnaire design. Thanks to Dr. Patricia Mokhtarian from University of California at Davis for your help in enhancing my factor analysis skills. Thanks also to all the local authorities in Tyne and Wear who helped me with the interview data. iv Thanks to Dr. David Greenwood, my former MSc supervisor, for introducing the topic of this study. I’d like to thank my parents, Ir. Bambang Aditjandra and Hychinta. Without your hard work, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to pursue higher education and study abroad. Your endless love, support and encouragement helped me achieve my dream. I love you. Thanks to my wife, Fanny Evelin and son Sean Oliver, for your patience and hard work to make our sweet home in Newcastle and of course with the very arrival of second son Ewan Christopher post VIVA. I love you all too. Thanks to my brother, Antonius Aditjandra and my sister, Karin Aditjandra and her family, for your time and support throughout my PhD studentship. You have always been my best friends for whatever situations. I love you too. Thank you Jovian and Brian for your help delivering my questionnaires to 2200 households in Tyne and Wear. Thanks for your legs. I hope you enjoyed the exercise. Thanks to Amy Guo, my best PhD colleague, for sharing highs and lows during our PhD journeys. Thanks also to all the members of the Public Transport and Passenger (PTP) Unit, Transport Operations Research Group (TORG). You offered support and helped shape me into who I am now. Keep on going, mates. Special thanks for all the staff at Sainsbury’s, Heaton, where I worked for the last four and a half years, every weekend. Thanks for all the joy and happiness and accepting me as part of your community. I miss my weekends reading papers on the kiosk for free. I love you all. Also thanks to the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences who provided me with the opportunity to present at conferences so that I could receive valuable feedback on this study. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract……….. ........................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgement ....................................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………vi LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………..ix LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………xi CHAPTER 1: Introduction ......................................................................................... 1 1.1. Background ......................................................................................................... 1 1.2. The UK context to this study .............................................................................. 5 1.2.1. Policy Review .............................................................................................. 7 1.2.2. Practice initiatives: the British context ........................................................ 8 1.3. Aims and objective of the study........................................................................ 10 1.4. Structure of the thesis........................................................................................ 11 CHAPTER 2: Critical Review of Literature ........................................................... 13 2.1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 13 2.2. The relationships between land-use and transport ............................................ 14 2.2.1. Sources of data ........................................................................................... 15 2.2.2. Key characteristics of transport and urban form ........................................ 15 2.2.3. Analysis of the impact of neighbourhood design characteristics on travel behaviour: an international comparison ............................................................... 21 Hypothetical studies ......................................................................................... 22 Descriptive studies ........................................................................................... 25 Multivariate statistical studies.......................................................................... 28 Longitudinal studies ......................................................................................... 31 Summary .......................................................................................................... 32 2.2.4. The influence of residential self-selection location on travel pattern ........ 36 2.3. Elements of travel behaviour and urban form and its interaction model relationship ............................................................................................................... 38 2.3.1. Identifying different urban form ................................................................ 39 2.3.2. Structural determinants of personal travel behaviour ................................ 42 2.3.3. Dimensional