Modeling the Travel Behavior Impacts of Micro-Scale Land Use and Socio-Economic Factors

Abstract

The effects of neighborhood-level land use characteristics on urban travel behavior of Iranian cities are under-researched. The present paper examines such influences in a microscopic scale. In this study the role of socio-economic factors is also studies and compared to that of urban form. Two case-study neighborhoods in west of Tehran are selected and considered, first of which is a centralized and compact neighborhood and the other is a sprawled and centerless one. A Multinomial Logit Regression model is developed to consider the effects of socio-economic and land use factors on urban travel pattern. In addition, to consider the effective factors, cross-sectional comparison between the influences of local accessibility and attractiveness of the neighborhood centers of the two case-study areas are undertaken. Also the causality relationships are considered according to the findings of the survey. The findings indicate significant effects of age and household income as socio-economic factors on transportation mode choice in neighborhoods with central structure. One the other hand, no meaningful association between socio-economic or land use variables are resulted by the model for the sprawled case. The most effective land use concept in micro-scale is considered to be satisfaction of entertainment facilities of the neighborhood. Also the descriptive findings show that the centralized neighborhood that gives more local accessibility to shops and retail generates less shopping trips. In considering the causal relations, the study shows that providing neighborhood infrastructures that increase or ease the accessibility to neighborhood amenities can lead to higher shares of sustainable transportation modes like walking, biking, or public transportation use.