Measures of Commuting and Local Transport Demand in Germany: A Case Study for Eighty-Nine Municipalities

Abstract

The way the spatial distribution of residential and commercial land use and the ensuing commuting patterns influence regional transport demand has been the subject of numerous studies. The motivation of this study is to ascertain which measures of regional commuting can serve as indicators for other transport-related parameters. It uses publicly available German commuter, road network, and mobility survey data for eighty-nine municipalities in Germany. The analysis of commuting efficiency for the eighty-nine study areas required reversing the aggregation of relational volumes due to data protection issues. It revealed the study area delineation as a major factor influencing measures of commuting efficiency. In total, sixteen commuting measures and twelve mobility survey parameters were subjected to simple linear regression analysis. The regression analysis yielded low coefficients of determination (R 2) for measures of commuting efficiency. Higher R 2 up to 0.60 were found for the commuting measure of residence-based self-containment with the number of cars per household as well as the number and total distance of motorized and unmotorized trips. These findings underline the responsibility of transport system design for the development of sustainable cities.