The trip chaining activity of Sydney residents: A cross-section assessment by age group with a focus on seniors

Abstract

In this paper, we use a pooled (2002–2004) cross-section of the Sydney travel survey, an annual continuous survey since 1997, to investigate the current profile of trip chaining travel activity of individual’s in five-year groups, with a particular focus on those over 64 years old (i.e., seniors), given the aging of the population. Multiple correspondence analysis is used to establish causality of nonlinear and non-monotonic relationships between socioeconomic descriptors and measures of travel behavior (assessed as trip chains). A benchmark setting for today not only establishes the way in which the elderly currently ‘cope’ with the existing supply network and the available modal alternatives, given their needs, but also is useful in providing hints as to what might be the key emerging transport policy and planning challenges in the future to serve this growing and increasingly influential population sub-strata. The main policy finding is that after age 64, travel demand shifts from car driving (partly linked to loss of driving license, but partly through choice), to car passenger and then to public transport in complex trip chains, especially for singles and for all women.