Understanding How Individuals Make Travel and Location Decisions: Implications for Public Transportation (2008)

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TRANSPORTAT ION RESEARCH BOARD WASHINGTON, D.C. 2008 www.TRB.org T R A N S I T C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M TCRP REPORT 123 Research sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration in cooperation with the Transit Development Corporation Subject Areas Public Transit Understanding How Individuals Make Travel and Location Decisions: Implications for Public Transportation Karla H. Karash TRANSYSTEMS CORPORATION Medford, MA Matthew A. Coogan White River Junction, VT Thomas Adler RESOURCE SYSTEMS GROUP White River Junction, VT Chris Cluett BATTELLE Seattle, WA Susan A. Shaheen UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Berkeley, CA Icek Aizen Amherst, MA Monica Simon SIMON & SIMON RESEARCH AND ASSOCIATES, INC. Elkridge, MD

TCRP REPORT 123 Project H-31 ISSN 1073-4872 ISBN: 978-0-309-09925-7 Library of Congress Control Number 2008922408 © 2008 Transportation Research Board COPYRIGHT PERMISSION Authors herein are responsible for the authenticity of their materials and for obtaining written permissions from publishers or persons who own the copyright to any previously published or copyrighted material used herein. Cooperative Research Programs (CRP) grants permission to reproduce material in this publication for classroom and not-for-profit purposes. Permission is given with the understanding that none of the material will be used to imply TRB, AASHTO, FAA, FHWA, FMCSA, FTA, or Transit Development Corporation endorsement of a particular product, method, or practice. It is expected that those reproducing the material in this document for educational and not-for-profit uses will give appropriate acknowledgment of the source of any reprinted or reproduced material. For other uses of the material, request permission from CRP. NOTICE The project that is the subject of this report was a part of the Transit Cooperative Research Program conducted by the Transportation Research Board with the approval of the Governing Board of the National Research Council. Such approval reflects the Governing Board’s judgment that the project concerned is appropriate with respect to both the purposes and resources of the National Research Council. The members of the technical advisory panel selected to monitor this project and to review this report were chosen for recognized scholarly competence and with due consideration for the balance of disciplines appropriate to the project. The opinions and conclusions expressed or implied are those of the research agency that performed the research, and while they have been accepted as appropriate by the technical panel, they are not necessarily those of the Transportation Research Board, the National Research Council, the Transit Development Corporation, or the Federal Transit Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Each report is reviewed and accepted for publication by the technical panel according to procedures established and monitored by the Transportation Research Board Executive Committee and the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, the National Research Council, the Transit Development Corporation, and the Federal Transit Administration (sponsor of the Transit Cooperative Research Program) do not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers’ names appear herein solely because they are considered essential to the clarity and completeness of the project reporting. TRANSIT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM The nation’s growth and the need to meet mobility, environmental, and energy objectives place demands on public transit systems. Current systems, some of which are old and in need of upgrading, must expand service area, increase service frequency, and improve efficiency to serve these demands. Research is necessary to solve operating problems, to adapt appropriate new technologies from other industries, and to intro- duce innovations into the transit industry. The Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) serves as one of the principal means by which the transit industry can develop innovative near-term solutions to meet demands placed on it. The need for TCRP was originally identified in TRB Special Report 213—Research for Public Transit: New Directions, published in 1987 and based on a study sponsored by the Urban Mass Transportation Administration—now the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). A report by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), Transportation 2000, also recognized the need for local, problem- solving research. TCRP, modeled after the longstanding and success- ful National Cooperative Highway Research Program, undertakes research and other technical activities in response to the needs of tran- sit service providers. The scope of TCRP includes a variety of transit research fields including planning, service configuration, equipment, facilities, operations, human resources, maintenance, policy, and administrative practices. TCRP was established under FTA sponsorship in July 1992. Pro- posed by the U.S. Department of Transportation, TCRP was autho- rized as part of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA). On May 13, 1992, a memorandum agreement out- lining TCRP operating procedures was executed by the three cooper- ating organizations: FTA, the National Academies, acting through the Transportation Research Board (TRB); and the Transit Development Corporation, Inc. (TDC), a nonprofit educational and research orga- nization established by APTA. TDC is responsible for forming the independent governing board, designated as the TCRP Oversight and Project Selection (TOPS) Committee. Research problem statements for TCRP are solicited periodically but may be submitted to TRB by anyone at any time. It is the responsibility of the TOPS Committee to formulate the research program by identi- fying the highest priority projects. As part of the evaluation, the TOPS Committee defines funding levels and expected products. Once selected, each project is assigned to an expert panel, appointed by the Transportation Research Board. The panels prepare project state- ments (requests for proposals), select contractors, and provide techni- cal guidance and counsel throughout the life of the project. The process for developing research problem statements and selecting research agencies has been used by TRB in managing cooperative research pro- grams since 1962. As in other TRB activities, TCRP project panels serve voluntarily without compensation. Because research cannot have the desired impact if products fail to reach the intended audience, special emphasis is placed on dissemi- nating TCRP results to the intended end users of the research: tran- sit agencies, service providers, and suppliers. TRB provides a series of research reports, syntheses of transit practice, and other support- ing material developed by TCRP research. APTA will arrange for workshops, training aids, field visits, and other activities to ensure that results are implemented by urban and rural transit industry practitioners. The TCRP provides a forum where transit agencies can cooperatively address common operational problems. The TCRP results support and complement other ongoing transit research and training programs. Published reports of the TRANSIT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM are available from: Transportation Research Board Business Office 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 and can be ordered through the Internet at http://www.national-academies.org/trb/bookstore Printed in the United States of America

CRP STAFF FOR TCRP REPORT 123 Christopher W. Jenks, Director, Cooperative Research Programs Crawford F. Jencks, Deputy Director, Cooperative Research Programs Dianne S. Schwager, Senior Program Officer Eileen P. Delaney, Director of Publications Margaret B. Hagood, Editor Maria Sabin Crawford, Assistant Editor TCRP PROJECT H-31 PANEL Field of Service Policy and Planning Tracy Winfree, City of Boulder, Boulder, CO (Chair) Daniel “Dan” Brand, Charles River Associates, Inc., Boston, MA J. Joseph Cronin, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL Richard E. Killingsworth, The Harvest Foundation, Martinsville, VA Tom Kloster, Portland (OR) Metro Planning Council, Portland, OR Kevin J. Krizek, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN Malcolm D. Rivkin, Rivkin Associates, Bethesda, MD Kenn Snapp, New Jersey Transit Corporation, Newark, NJ Pippa Woods, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ Effie Stallsmith, FTA Liaison Robert Ferlis, Other Liaison Kimberly Fisher, TRB Liaison AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The research described in this report was performed under TCRP Project H-31 by TranSystems Corporation, with assistance from Matthew Coogan, Resource Systems Group, Simon & Simon Research and Associates Inc., Susan A. Shaheen, Battelle, and Icek Aizen. Karla Karash of TranSystems is the Principal Investigator for the project, in close partnership with Matthew Coogan and with Thomas Adler of Resource Systems Group. Karla Karash and Matthew Coogan were the primary authors of this final report. Thomas Adler and Resource Systems Group personnel (Nelson Whipple, Karyn Dossinger, and Margaret Campbell) provided the resources and expertise for conducting the Internet panel survey, as well as much of the analysis. Matthew Coogan provided a continuing series of quality insights into the data. Monica and Rosalyn Simon of Simon and Simon Research and Associates were responsible for conducting the focus groups. Dr. Icek Aizen provided inval- uable advice on how to structure a survey for the theory of planned behavior. Susan Shaheen and her asso- ciates from the University of California at Berkeley assisted in the literature review and expert interviews. Chris Cluett of Battelle contributed to the research approach and assessed the practical implications from the research. We would like to thank Janice Pepper at NJ Transit for providing access to a portion of their e-panel for the research. The guidance of Dianne Schwager, the TCRP Program Officer for the project, and the Project Panel has been appreciated. C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M S

TCRP Report 123: Understanding How Individuals Make Travel and Location Decisions: Implications for Public Transportation explores a broader social context for individual deci- sion making related to residential location and travel behavior and consequently will be of interest to planners, researchers, transit managers, and decision makers. The findings from this research contribute to efforts to predict mode choice and how to influence it through better policies and design, education, and communication. Because residential location and travel behavior have a large effect on society’s consump- tion of energy, on levels of pollution, and on health, there is great value in increasing our understanding of the mechanism of mode choice. While the transportation community has considerable experience in using rational economic models of decision making in explor- ing residential and travel choice, there is less research into decision-making models from other fields such as sociology, psychology, and marketing research. This research project explored an approach from the field of psychology that adds valuable perspective to under- standing behavior. An underlying assumption of this research is that growing urban congestion and impaired mobility can be mitigated by encouraging people to substitute public transporta- tion and walking for individual automobile use. A related assumption is that if people live in communities that are transit oriented (called compact neighborhoods in this research), they will walk and take public transportation more. A practical challenge, of course, is how to promote this kind of behavior in enough instances to have a measurable, beneficial effect on travel conditions. The premise of this research is that by gaining a better understanding of the links between individuals’ attitudes, intentions, and behaviors with regard to compact neighborhoods and travel alternatives to the automobile, strategies can be better configured and targeted to help achieve the desired outcomes. Thus, the goals of this research are two-fold: namely, to improve understanding of how people make travel and location decisions, and to derive practical implications and policy guidance for encouraging more use of public transportation and walking. Appendixes to the contractor’s final report are available on the TRB website at http://trb. org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=8661. The appendixes are the following: Appendix A: Inter- views with Experts; Appendix B: The Interview Questionnaires; and Appendix C: SPSS and Excel files of Survey Results. The SPSS and Excel files contain the responses of respondents from an internet survey panel that provided information on memories, perceptions, pref- erences, and behavior related to mode and residential choice. The data will be of great inter- est to researchers exploring the relationships among these factors. F O R E W O R D By Dianne S. Schwager Staff Officer Transportation Research Board

C O N T E N T S 1 Summary 15 Chapter 1 Introduction and Research Approach 15 Introduction 16 Overview of the Report 16 Definitions 19 Chapter 2 The Relationship Between Residential Choice, Transportation, and Life-Cycle Stage 19 Overall Trends 22 Literature on the Effect of Land Use on Travel Behavior 26 Research on Choice of Residential Location 28 Lessons from the Literature on the Relationship Between Land Use and Transportation 29 Chapter 3 Background to the TPB and Its Application in Transportation 29 Literature on the Theory of Planned Behavior 30 The Application of the TPB to Transportation 33 Conclusions from the Literature on the TPB 34 Chapter 4 The Model of the Theory of Planned Behavior 37 Chapter 5 Research Approach 38 Phase 1 Survey: Choice of Residence 42 Phase 2 Survey: Choice of Mode 47 Summary 48 Chapter 6 Selected Findings from the Phase I Survey 48 Who Were the Respondents? 49 Current Residence/Residential Aspirations/Transit Use 51 Childhood Experience and Attitudes 51 Current Environmental Attitudes 52 TPB Measures on Moving to a Compact Neighborhood 55 Summary 56 Chapter 7 Market Segments for Moving to a Compact Neighborhood 56 Overview of the Market Segments 61 Understanding the Travel Patterns of the Five Market Segments 63 Understanding the Two Market Segments with the Highest Intent to Move 64 Understanding the Three Groups with Lowest Intent to Move to a Compact Neighborhood 65 Interpretation, Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior 66 Summary of Findings for Five Market Segments for Moving

67 Chapter 8 Travel Behavior by Values, Urban Form, and Auto Ownership 67 Introduction and Structure of the Chapter 67 Personal Values and Travel Behavior; Urban Form, and Travel Behavior 71 The Combination of Personal Values, Urban Form, and Travel Behavior 73 Auto Availability and Travel Behavior 75 Examination of Relationships Using Structural Equation Modeling 80 Summary Observations 82 Chapter 9 Exploring the Choice of a Compact Neighborhood Using the Theory of Planned Behavior 82 Relationship Between ATT, SN, SCF, and Intent 83 Relationship Between Behavioral Beliefs, Outcome Evaluations, and Attitude 85 Relationship Between Normative Beliefs, Motivation to Comply, and Subjective Norm 86 Relationship Between Control Beliefs, Power of Control, and Self-Confidence 86 Structural Equation Model for the Full TPB 88 Chapter Summary 91 Chapter 10 Results from the Phase 2 Survey 91 Background Information on the Respondents 94 Respondents’ Willingness to Walk and Use Transit More 99 Follow-Up Questions on Neighborhood Preferences 100 The Messages 100 Alternative Transportation Services 103 Follow-Up Analysis: Comparing Phase 2 TPB Results 108 Summary 110 Chapter 11 Market Segments for Mode Choice 110 Summary Definition of the Four Segments for Modal Change 111 Illustrative Characteristics of the Four Segments for Modal Change 112 Understanding the Two Most Likely Groups to Change Modal Behavior 113 Understanding the Behavior of the Two Least Likely Groups to Change Modal Behavior 114 What Groups Shifted and Why? 117 Desired Attributes for a Change in Modal Behavior 119 Comparison with Other Research 121 Addendum: Fifty-Six Variables Correlated with Final Intent 123 Chapter 12 Use of the TPB to Understand Mode Choice 123 Overview of the Chapter 124 Relationships of the Directly Measured TPB Variables 125 Relationship Between Behavioral Beliefs and Attitude 127 Relationship Between Normative Beliefs and Subjective Norm 127 Relationship Between the Power of Control and Self-Confidence 128 Summary 130 Chapter 13 Practical Implications of the Research 130 Some Research Limitations 130 Implications from Phase 1 Research 131 Implications from Phase 2 Research 132 Summary of Practical Implications 134 References 136 Abbreviations 137 Appendixes