Distance Commuters Research Articles

Seachange Migration, Outer Metropolitan Suburbanisation, and Marginality: The Electoral Politics of the Central Coast of New South Wales, 1949–2001

Seachanging and the expansion of suburbia led to important changes in Australia's human geography during the second half of the twentieth century. However, the implications of domestic migration on electoral politics have received only limited study. The Central Coast of New South Wales was one place where these two patterns of movement converged and which came to be routinely identified in public debate as electorally marginal. In reviewing this discursive positioning across both federal and state politics over several decades, the article examines how the region's marginality was often linked to the social mix created by migration primarily from Sydney, among which retirees and long distance commuters received particular attention as cohorts of voters. The analysis then turns to electoral competition in what was thus seen as a contestable space. This spanned national, state, and local issues and the major parties sometimes pre‐selected candidates offering very distinct value propositions. Overall, the Central Coast's regional political discourse reflected wider understandings of voting realignment seen around Australia, including changing perspectives on class, but also highlights how migration created new, formative communities where marginality was viewed as an important part of local political identity and practice.

MOBILITY RESILIENCE OF COMMUTE TRIPS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN SEOUL, KOREA

Abstract. Since early 2020, the number of COVID-19 cases has continued its rise and fall worldwide, greatly impacting sectors such as health outcomes, economics, housing, and transportation. To mitigate the spread of the pandemic, governments implemented various measures to reduce the mobility of the population, restricting international travel, hierarchical lockdowns, stay-at-home mandates, and work-from-home orders. In this aspect, early studies in the transportation field showed large changes in travel behaviour. However, we know less about the long-term impact of COVID-19 on people's travel behaviour. This paper explores the change in commute behaviour during the pandemic, focusing on the resilience index of transit users and its determining factors. The hist gradient boosting model was the most precise when compared with linear and other machine learning models (considering R2, MSE, MAE). The results suggested the following: (1) commuters' trips decreased unevenly in Seoul. Through machine learning algorithms, social-economic factors, and accessibility, 50% of the heterogeneity can be explained. (2) Consumer and Service Industry and Foreigner Tourism were impacted negatively continually. Neighbourhoods with higher car ownership and a higher percentage of female residents show long term weak public transit resilience. (2) Short distance commuters (less than 20 minutes) and commuters visiting city centres, returned to public transport in the second year after avoiding it during the first year of the pandemic. Considering the uneven negative results of COVID-19, this research can be a reference for policy design and effective decision making.

Company-Wide Carpooling for Long Distance Commuting in South Korea and Its Effects on Reducing Transportation Problems

Car ownership and its resulting traffic congestion have been a global problem in the transport, energy, and environmental sectors. And as such, a shared transportation system, such as car sharing, carpooling, and public bicycles, is important in providing a curb and solution to the problem. The study explores the unique voluntary carpooling program operated by employees at Korea Land & Housing Institute and focuses on the feasibility of carpooling as an alternative for long-distance commute, which not only reduces traffic but also the carpooling users' costs. This study analyzed two data sets: a carpooling satisfaction survey and three-year carpool usage logs. The results showed that the carpooling rate for commuting to and from work was clearly higher among employees in their 40s and 50s than among the younger age groups. Many employees carpooled less than twice a month, but still, about 30% of the employees carpooled three or more times a month. Over the past 3 years, the driver participants averaged 11.8 carpooling trips and all carpoolers were satisfied with the carpooling. There were approximately two times more passenger participants than driver participants. More than half participated as drivers and occasionally as passengers. Thus, if commuting to the new worksite by public transport isn't convenient, carpooling is one of the best solutions to relieve the commuting burden in a short period of time. The increase in carpool usage suggests that traffic demand management policies that encourage carpooling can alleviate traffic congestion, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and energy consumption.

Who are long distance commuters in Italy? Profiling LDC in Milan Urban Region

This research focuses on long-distance commuters (LDC) in Italy, defined as people who travel long distances for work-related reasons, mainly to avoid residential mobility. These mobility practices, which are still quantitatively insignificant compared to daily commuting flows, can be correlated to socio-economic and lifestyle transformations, resulting from the combined effects of changes in the labour market, family and personal attitudes and constraints, and the supply of transport and communication networks. This paper frames long-distance commuting on a national level to describe the relevance and the geography of this phenomenon in Italy, offering an in-depth analysis of long-distance work-related travel in the Milan Urban Region (North of Italy) to understand the profiles of LDCs, the factors influencing this mobility practice, and its evolution over time. To address these concerns, a series of quantitative analyses are combined with complementary qualitative survey data acquired from interviews with a sample of LDCs. This approach puts in evidence emerging needs, times, and conditions of this practice and helps to define some key LDC profiles that may orient more inclusive and sustainable mobility policies.

Passively wait for gridlock, or proactively invest in service? Strategies to promote car-to-transit switches among aspirational urbanites in rapidly developing contexts

As planners and policymakers in cities around the world struggle to attract and retain public transit users, this paper explores strategies to promote transit adoption in contexts where the odds are stacked against transit. Using travel behavior data from India's National Capital Region – one of the most congested metropolitan areas globally that is experiencing unprecedented growth in personal vehicle ownership and plummeting transit ridership – this study analyzes the choice of intra-urban (metro) rail over personal car for commute trips within a specific population sub-group that is fast adopting the personal car and exiting the transit market. The objective of this mode choice analysis that employs both logistic regression modeling and the propensity-score matching technique is to identify multi-modal service quality/performance factors that determine metro rail vs. car choice, and thereby recommend efficient and effective interventions for inducing car-to-transit switches in addition to retaining existing transit riders. Results suggest that increasing metro rail's travel time competitiveness relative to car (particularly for long distance commuters), service frequency and safety level, and raising car parking cost at the destination can increase the likelihood of choice of metro rail over car in the study context. Interestingly, increase in traffic congestion and travel time unreliability of the car mode are not expected to automatically boost the demand for metro rail use, all else equal. As the momentum towards more car adoption continues, this study shows that deteriorating traffic conditions may not push drivers out of cars; rather, public transit has to step up and pull drivers out of cars. For planners and policymakers, this study indicates that rather than passively waiting for driving conditions to worsen, they should proactively invest in transit service quality improvements. This study also highlights the importance of communicating service changes to the traveling public in order to efficiently translate interventions to behavior changes, given the dissonance between travelers' perceptions of multi-modal travel conditions and actual travel conditions. This paper further demonstrates that analysis of travelers' perception errors, including variation in error across travelers, is important for accurately modeling travel behavior changes in response to interventions. The findings add to the literature on mode choice analysis, and provide strategic advice for transit agencies in India and across other comparable contexts globally.

‘Ecological concerns weren’t the main reason why I took the bus, that association only came afterwards’: on shifts in meanings of everyday mobility

ABSTRACT Reducing the modal share of car travel in commuting implies challenging meanings of everyday mobility that tie commuting to driving. Existing research has focussed on describing ways in which everyday mobility is meaningful. However, why shifts in meanings occur remains largely unexplored. This article asks how meanings become ascribed to everyday mobility and identifies dynamics that play a role in shifts in those meanings. We analysed interviews with short distance commuters in two Swiss cities. Combining the analytical foci of the mobilities turn and practice theories, we developed a typology of four registers through which meaning is ascribed to everyday mobility (functional, hedonic, representative, habitual) and identified three sets of dynamics that play into shifts between these registers: i) dynamics related to the spatio-temporal complexity of everyday life, ii) dynamics emerging from different and changing social representations of mobility, and iii) dynamics tied to subjective experiences of everyday mobility. Our findings indicate that shifts in meanings and performances of everyday mobility must be analysed together, and that differences in how commuters ascribe meaning to everyday mobilities can reveal structural dynamics inhibiting the spread of pleasurable low-carbon everyday mobilities.

An optimized fuzzy logic for the energy management of a hybrid electric air-taxi

The goal of this investigation is to model a hybrid electric air-taxi and minimize its fuel consumption by on-line energy management. Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is considered as a suitable way to reduce traffic congestion and pollution as well as increase mobility in metropolitan areas. Urban air-mobility is an interesting application for electric and hybrid-electric power systems because of limited speed (compared with longer distance commuters) altitudes up to 1000ft and short-range requirements that make possible electrification even with the limited performance of today batteries. However, in case of hybrid electric propulsion systems, the fuel consumption and the environmental impact depends on the energy management. After obtaining reference values of fuel economy over four different missions with the Dynamic programming method, this investigation proposes and optimize a fuzzy logic for the on-line energy management of the hybrid vehicle for UAM in order to minimize fuel consumption and, consequently, local environmental impact.

Trespassing for mobilities. Operational directions for addressing mobile lives

Transport geography and mobilities studies share the same object of study – mobility - which nonetheless has been differently conceptualized by the two disciplinary fields. This difference impacts their analytical, interpretative and operational approaches as well as their actual contribution to transport planning, so that despite their proximity, mobility studies and transport geography still appear as bordering disciplinary fields. To deal with concerns that affect the way we address urban mobility issues, the paper suggests putting into practice what the heterodox economist Albert Hirschman famously called trespassing, as a tactic to cross disciplinary boundaries and progress with some puzzles through detours and forays into other fields. In doing so, the paper aims at exploring how trespassing enhances the way mobilities studies and transport geography may usefully cross-fertilize each other and enhance operational responses to mobility issues, by analysing the conceptual and operational innovations that could benefit from such a reciprocal interchange. To discuss forms of significant trespassing for mobilities, the paper proposes to detect and address emerging forms of everyday mobility, taking long distance commuters (LDC) in the Milan Urban Region as an example. Here, trespassing allows the merging of quantitative and qualitative datasets to understand the articulated nature of this and other forms of contemporary mobilities. Working on the interpretative and operational challenges posed by these emerging mobilities that question key principles of the traditional ‘utilitarian approach’ to transport planning, the paper discusses the conceptual, analytical and operational directions along which trespassing may be developed.

Locating charging stations for electric vehicles

The insufficient charging infrastructure greatly obstructs the development of the electric vehicle(EV) industry. How to efficiently deploy charging stations in a city becomes an urgent problem for the local government. Previous refueling location models are not suitable for fulfilling the EVs' charging demand. This paper proposes a location model for charging stations based on the characteristics of travel behaviors of urban residents. The model consists of two parts: one for short distance commuters which utilize slow charging (SC) facilities, and the other for long distance travelers which utilize fast recharging (FR) facilities. It aims to harness limited resource to meet as much as possible charging demand for both parking vehicles and vehicles on long journeys. A typical city of China is used as an example to demonstrate the implementation and results of the model. We employed sensitive analyses to search for specific factors having strong impact on the number and location of charging stations. It is suggested that travel distance and locating capacity will greatly affect the final result.

Effect of Walkability on Users Choice of “Walking” the Last Mile to Transit Stations: A Case of Delhi Metro

<em>There is growing recognition of the importance of Last Mile Connectivity (LMC) to mass transit systems. In the context of Delhi, albeit a shift can be seen in the provisioning of LMC, and despite previous studies indicating that more than 50% of metro rail users walk to and/or from metro stations, yet the seriousness with which pedestrian environment is woven into transit planning is lacking.</em><br /><em>The paper is based on an empirical study conducted by the author, of approximately 800 samples of metro users surveyed across seven stations of Delhi Metro, representing different station typologies, ridership and locational contexts. The paper focuses on the “walk” choice of users across a variety of factors related to their socio-economic strata, trip characteristics and station context. A parallel study is conducted to audit the pedestrian environment within one kilometre distance around each station. The paper further attempts to investigate whether pedestrian environment affects user choice of opting for “walk” as the last mile choice. It also ranks the performance of the case stations in terms of various attributes of walkability.</em><br /><em>In conclusion, the paper contends that overall walkability environment offered to transit commuters is crucial in the share of walk trips for last mile commute and the distance commuters are willing to walk. It recommends that walking as LMC choice needs to be promoted through enhanced user experience in absence of which a significant amount of last mile travel will happen through unsustainable mechanised modes.</em>

The spatial distribution of hybrid electric vehicles in a sprawled mid-size Canadian city: Evidence from Windsor, Canada

Technological advancements in recent years have allowed hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) to improve in terms of associated tailpipe emissions and fuel efficiency. As a result, the demand for HEVs in Canada has been on the rise, but the market share is still negligible. In this paper, the population of HEVs in the Windsor Census metropolitan area (CMA), Ontario, Canada for the year 2010 is considered to study the determinants that led to the observed spatial distribution of this class of vehicles across the different census tracts within the CMA. Vehicle-specific characteristics along with locational variables are employed in the analysis. Locational factors are based on census tract profile attributes (namely socio-economic factors) that were acquired from the 2011 Census National Household Survey (NHS). Other variables used in the analysis include mixed density index, average commuting distance and a measure of spatial clustering. Discrete choice modeling is used to explain the residential location of HEV owners in the CMA. Moran's I statistics analysis suggests that the spatial distribution of HEV owners exhibits a clustering pattern. This was also reinforced by the significance of the spatial term used in the choice model. Area-based socio-economic factors pertaining to the size of population, gender, type of occupation, education, size of household of the people living in an area, and income explain the spatial prevalence of HEVs. Also, areas housing long distance commuters as well as areas with mixed density tend to house HEV owners.

Travel satisfaction with public transport: Determinants, user classes, regional disparities and their evolution

Increasing public transport ridership while providing a service that better caters to individual travelers poses an important goal and challenge for society, particularly public transport authorities and operators. This study identifies and characterizes current and potential users of public transport in Sweden and identifies the most important determinants of travel satisfaction with Public Transport services for each segment of travelers. In addition, it investigates the changes over time of attribute importance among the different segments and the inter-segment geographical variation of overall satisfaction. The analysis is based on a dataset of almost half a million records. Travelers were clustered based on their socio-demographics, travel patterns and accessibility measures to enable the analysis of determinants of satisfaction for different market segments. The cluster analysis results with five segments of Swedish travelers include: (i) inactive travelers; (ii) long distance commuters; (iii) urban motorist commuters; (iv) rural motorist commuters and; (v) students. By contrasting satisfaction with the importance of each quality of service attribute, three key attributes that should be prioritized by stakeholders are identified: customer interface, operation, network and length of trip time. Interestingly, the results suggest an overall similarity in the importance of service attributes among traveler segments. Nevertheless, some noticeable differences could be observed. The quality of service attributes’ importance levels reveal overall changes in appreciations and consumption goals over time. The more frequent public transport user segments are more satisfied across the board and are characterized by a more balanced distribution of attribute importance while rural motorist commuters are markedly dissatisfied with service operation attributes. This work can help authorities to tailor their policies to specific traveler groups.

Long Distance Commuting in Oil and Gas Production Industry in the Northwestern Siberia: Sociological Analysis of Change

Article considers social aspects of a long distance commuting in an oil and gas complex of Northwestern Siberia. The history of its development, change of conceptual approaches to the organization of shifts, change in dynamics of key parameters are shown. The interaction system of basic elements of rotational work is revealed and the management mechanism is offered. The results of sociological researches conducted in the oil and gas companies situated in Northwest Siberia are given. The necessity of the strengthening interdisciplinary researches directed on leveling of negative social aspects of a long distance commuting as well as the system of sociological monitoring are proved. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n3s5p199

Re‐imagining Geographic Labour Mobility through ‘Distance Labour’

Geographic labour mobility is necessary for increasing productivity in Australia. Long‐distance commuting has been found to be especially significant. However, important considerations are being excluded from policy discussions within the Productivity Commission on this topic. This commentary covers these important omissions. They are, namely, the problematic conflation of the terminologies of ‘fly‐in, fly‐out’ and ‘long‐distance commuting’ with mining, and a lack of qualitative research investigating the material impacts of these labour practices on people's lives. This commentary puts forward a new terminology, ‘distance labour’, to better include those industries on the margins of distance commuting. By accounting for the social worlds of workers engaged in distance labour, the Productivity Commission could increase the validity of its datasets, and provide more egalitarian policy recommendations.

Exploring characteristics and motives of long distance commuter cyclists

Longer distance cycling is a commuting mode that contributes to sustainability and public health objectives, but little is known about current long distance cyclist׳s motives. The paper explores longer distance commuter cyclists, their characteristics, practice and motives. Longer distance, commuter cyclists (>5km from home to work) have more mobility options, higher incomes, and a longer education than other commuter cyclists. The main motive for longer distance cycling is physical exercise, followed by reduced costs and time used for traveling. The long distance commuter cyclists surveyed are very positive about their commute - pointing to positive experiences, better mood, and stress relief as experiences related to their cycle trip to work. Policy support should devote attention to unlocking the potential that may be embedded in individuals combining their exercise and travel time, budgets to promote active travel to work as well as the role of psychological benefits as a factor in promoting and sustaining cycling practices.

Long Distance Commuting and Couple Satisfaction in Israel and United States: An Exploratory Study

Employment related mobility is on the increase and long distance extended commuting has become a substitute for migration. Details on patterns of voluntary long distance extended mobility were gathered and propositions based on deficit and resilience perspectives of the impact of commuting couple satisfaction were assessed. From 2010 to 2012, using a staticgroup comparison research design both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered from a non-probability convenience sample of 434 respondents in Israel and 130 in the U.S. Commuters, especially in Israel, were most often males, older, married and in relationships longer than non-commuters. While length of commuting did not impact overall satisfaction with commuting couples' relationships, frequency of commutes had a modest negative impact. While satisfaction reports from noncommuting couple members were consistently higher than the reports from commuting couples, the majority of both groups reported satisfaction with their relationships. But commuting appears to have a modest negative impact on couples' satisfaction with their relationships. Women who supported gender specific roles for couples were more likely than men to report greater satisfaction with their relationships. Data limitations identity obstacles to overcome and need to further assess potential risk and protective factors, especially resilience.

Comparison Study on Travel Characteristics between Two Kinds of Electric Bike

Electric two-wheeler is booming in China, and there are two kinds of electric two-wheelers. One is electric bike, another is over-standard electric bike. Nowadays, over-standard electric bikes that account for 60 percent of electric two-wheeler become the major part. However, they have caused a series of problems affecting the traffic efficiency and safety. In order to take effective and practicable measures to supervise over-standard electric bikes, it is necessary to research it. In this paper, RP survey is used to approach to travel characteristics of over-standard electric bikes. Conclusion shows that over-standard electric bicycles have strong competitiveness with public transport and bicycle. The users prefer to a longer travel distance commuter trip. If over-standard electric bikes will be unavailable, users may travel by motorized traffic.

Private Car Switched to Public Transit by Commuters, in Shanghai, China

In order to effectively attract commuters from private car to public transit, this paper aimed to find out the target population and the attributes of public transit which needs improvement. The research was based on a survey of private car commuters in Shanghai. The survey covered perceptions of public transit and private car service performance, the importance degree of trip attributes, and private car commuters’ intention to switch to public transit. The findings indicate that the target population is female and short distance commuters, because female and short distance private car commuters have lower trip demand and are more likely to switch to public transit. The analysis of Difference-Importance shows that public transit attributes of comfort and timeliness require improvement, and the measures strengthening public transit's comfort level should be taken first.

Sleepiness, Long Distance Commuting and Night Work as Predictors of Driving Performance

Few studies have examined the effect of working night shift and long distance commuting. We examined the association between several sleep related and demographic variables, commuting distance, night work and use of mobile phones on driving performance. We used a prospective design to recruit participants and conducted a telephone survey (n = 649). The survey collected demographic and journey details, work and sleep history and driving performance concerning the day the participant was recruited. Participants also completed the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Night workers reported significantly more sleepiness, shorter sleep duration and commuting longer distances. Seven variables were significant predictors of lane crossing. The strongest predictor was acute sleepiness (OR = 5.25, CI, 1.42–19.49, p<0.01) followed by driving ≥150 kms (OR = 3.61, CI, 1.66–7.81, p<0.001), obtaining less than 10 hours sleep in the previous 48 hours (OR = 2.58, CI, 1.03–6.46, p<0.05), driving after night shift (OR = 2.19, CI, 1.24–3.88, p<0.001), being <43 years old (OR = 1.95, CI, 1.11–3.41, p<0.05) and using mobile phones during the journey (OR = 1.90, CI, 1.10–3.27, p<0.05). Sleep related variables, long-distance commuting and night work have a major impact on lane crossing. Several interventions should be considered to reduce the level of sleepiness in night workers.

Miles That Bind: Commuter Marriage and Family Strengths

Commuter marriages are characterized by one spouse being resident in the family home, often with work and child-care responsibilities, while the other spouse works and lives away from home for extended periods. This arrangement of family life poses unique challenges for families drawn to the potential benefits of commuting. Commuter marriage entails enormous sacrifices and emotional costs and is not for most families. Still, it may work for others.Long distance commuter marriages are growing in number. Organizing marital and family life around the absence of a spouse is becoming a more familiar part of America's social landscape, making this an opportune time to familiarize readers with the literature in this area, while offering two examples of how commuting has worked for the authors' families. The literature on commuter marriage remains fairly thin, despite strong beginnings twenty years ago. Much relevant data draws from the area of Work and Families and from the corporate world.There are differing motivations for commuting. Commuters having a short or limited time-line for commuting may accept it as part of occupation, or feel that enduring the short term stress and disruption of commuting may bring long term benefits. These benefits include possible advancement, acquiring new skills, recognition as a loyal team player, or even the attractiveness of a temporary change in routine or locale. Receiving emotional support and encouragement from friends, family or colleagues, with office work, child care, and home maintenance are also easier to come by when the need is of limited duration. This regimen of commuting is easier to explain to children and negotiate with one's spouse.Long term commuters may be motivated by other factors. Wanting to stay in one's occupation or profession when work is not readily available is a strong motivator, particularly when work is unavailable locally or available employment involves a lower salary. Leveraging commuting into quality of life issue may be another motivator. For example, commuters working in New York or Boston during the week but live in Up-State New York, Western Massachusetts or rural New England, often stress quality of life issues for families, noting that purchasing power is increased by residential choices. Family relationships surely suffer the emotional and logistical dislocations of long distance commuting yet the commuting spouse remains in a readily accessible regional orbit.Longer distance open-ended commutes are most difficult. Visits home for the commuting spouse take longer, entail more expense, and are of shorter frequency and duration. These types of commuter marriages are hardest on the emotional bonds, routines and intimacy of couples. Such commutes are also hardest on children, pressing one parent into a super parent role while the other parent struggles to make parenting real to children. Commuters in this category, like regional commuters, tend to have a strong identification with careers and derive a strong sense of satisfaction from them. The opportunity to work for extended periods on assignments or projects without the interruption of family life is often satisfying to such individuals. Association with professional colleagues and independence in scheduling time is also a plus, as is personal freedom and their own environment. These considerations clash directly with the values associated with being part of a family, and it not surprising that such relationships work best when couples are enjoying an empty nest. The most successful commuters are those that can, like single residence dual career couples, compartmentalize work and family life (Franklin & Ramage, 1999; Schnittger & Bird, 1990). Commuters who tend to meld work and family together have the hardest time with commuting. Neither offers much to children or the remaining spouse with the emotional dislocations of commuting. …