Minority and poor households: patterns of travel and transportation fuel use

Abstract

This report documents the travel behavior and transportation fuel use of minority and poor households in the US, using information from numerous national-level sources. The resulting data base reveals distinctive patterns of household vehicle availability and use, travel, and fuel use and enables us to relate observed differences between population groups to differences in their demographic characteristics and in the attributes of their household vehicles. When income and residence location are controlled, black (and to a lesser extent, Hispanic and poor) households have fewer vehicles regularly available than do comparable white or nonpoor households; moreover, these vehicles are older and larger and thus have significantly lower fuel economy. The net result is that average black, Hispanic, and poor households travel fewer miles per year but use more fuel than do average white and nonpoor households. Certain other findings - notably, that of significant racial differences in vehicle availability and use by low-income households - challenge the conventional wisdom that such racial variations arise solely because of differences in income and residence location. Results of the study suggest important differences - primarily in the yearly fluctuation of income - between black and white low-income households even when residence location is controlled. These variables are not captured by cross-sectional data sets (either the national surveys used in our analysis or the local data sets that are widely used for urban transportation planning).