Abstracts Transportation

The Relationship between Socio-Demographic Constraints, Neighborhood Built Environment, and Travel Behavior: Three Empirical Essays

by Kihyun Kwon

Socio-demographics may represent constraints that shape different travel outcomes of individuals. This leads to studies with not only different findings on travel behavior, but also mixed and inconclusive conclusions on the effects of built environment on individuals’ travel outcomes. There are gaps in many existing studies on the relationship between socio-demographics, built environment, and travel behavior, which need to be filled. In addition, the existing literature has not paid much attention to the varying impacts of neighborhood-built environment on travel outcomes across different socio-demographic groups.Many signs from U.S. Census Bureau and Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that the socio-demographics of the U.S. society are undergoing a process of significant changes. It is uncertain how these changes may affect travel behavior in the short term and the long term. In the face of this uncertainty, a key challenge for transportation planners and policymakers is to understand how socio-demographics affect individuals’ travel outcomes and out-of-home activities. These major trends that affect future travel patterns will dramatically reshape transportation priorities and needs.This dissertation quantitatively examines the links between socio-demographic constraints, neighborhood-built environments, and travel behavior. This dissertation comprises three essays. The first essay explores gender differences in commute behavior with a focus on two-earner households. The second essay examines the links between walkability and transit use, focusing on the differences between disabled individuals and others. The third essay explores how neighborhood walkability affects older adults’ walking trips, considering different household income levels.The first essay utilizes the detailed individual-level data from 2001, 2009, and 2017 National Household Travel Surveys (NHTS). The NHTS datasets provide information on travel by U.S. residents in all 50 States, which include data on individuals, households, travel behavior, and vehicle ownership (U.S. Department of Transportation, 2017). The second and third essays mainly rely on data from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey – California Add-on (2017 NHTS-CA), which includes data on individuals, households, travel behavior, and vehicle ownership. In addition to these, the California Add-on dataset includes geo-coded location information.The findings of three essays suggest that socio-demographics significantly influence travel outcomes such as commute distances, transit trips, and walking trips. In addition, the findings provide empirical evidence on how neighborhood-built environments affect individuals’ travel outcomes differently based on socio-demographics. This helps transportation planners and policymakers to find motivators or barriers to change individuals’ travel outcomes and reshape the current transportation systems to better support future travel demand. Therefore, the dissertation contributes to a better understanding of the links…