Alternative and adaptive transportation: What household factors support recovery from a drastic increase in gas price?

Abstract

Transportation resiliency is the ability for a transportation system to maintain or return to a previous level of service after a disruptive event. Among many methods to assess resiliency, quality and quantity of mode choice have shown to be promising. The provision of multiple transportation options helps facilitate resiliency by relieving the transportation system stress that tends to occur in many situations when only one modal option is available. This research seeks to understand how the availability of environmentally friendly transportation modal options—bicycling, walking, and transit—contribute to resiliency as caused by an abrupt doubling of gas price. By creating a multinomial logistic regression mode choice model for Denver, Colorado, we are able to measure the resiliency value of various multimodal transportation infrastructures, even if few people are using those facilities today. Results of this study suggest three paths to resiliency: higher income, proximity to downtown, and the availability of transportation options. There is a cumulative effect in these results as well; for instance, low-income, suburban areas tend to spend more of their household budget on transportation than urban, higher-income areas, thus increasing their vulnerability. Through this analysis, we also investigate how this resiliency scenario affects geographically and demographically diverse areas in Denver, as well as how investments in more environmentally sustainable modes of transportation can support more resilient communities.