What is the role of weather, built-environment and accessibility geographical characteristics in influencing travelers’ experience?

Abstract

We examine the effect of weather, accessibility and built-environment characteristics on overall travel experience as well as the experience with the latest trips. These are factors that are often disregarded in the travel satisfaction literature even though they are believed to largely influence the first mile of the door-to-door trip. This study fills a research gap in investigating all these factors by using, amongst other, a relatively large travel satisfaction survey from years 2009 to 2015 and by focusing on urban and peri-urban geographical contexts, the city and county of Stockholm (Sweden), respectively. The ordered logit model results show that county dwellers living close to a metro station and in well linked-to-all areas report higher overall travel satisfaction evaluations. In addition, precipitation and ground covered with snow have a negative influence on travel satisfaction. Our findings indicate that built-environment characteristics exert a rather weak influence on the travel experience, especially in the peri-urban context. However, some aspects such as living in areas with medium densities, low income and with high safety perceptions around public transport stations are associated with higher satisfaction levels. In turn, areas with single land uses are found to have lower travel satisfactions. These results are important for public transport planners and designers in devising measures to prevent and mitigate the negative outcome of some weather conditions and to conceive better designed transit oriented developments.