Travel Behaviour Essay

12611 Words51 Pages
1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY The study of travel behaviour as it has evolved over the last half-century has yielded critical insight into the choices that individuals and households make about their daily travel. These insights have contributed to the development of increasingly sophisticated models to forecast travel behaviour and predict changes in behaviour in response to changes in the transportation system. Yet, the more we understand about travel behaviour, the more we recognize how much there is that we don't understand. As one question is answered, new questions emerge, and our appreciation of the complexity of travel behaviour grows (Clifton 2001). Travel behaviour is the study of what people do over space, and how people use transport. The questions studied in travel behaviour are broad, and are very much related to activity analysis and time use research studies. Some of the questions frequently asked to aid the determination of travel behaviour of a person or group of people are; How many trips do people make? Where do they go? (What is the destination?), What mode do they take?, Who accompanies whom?, When is the trip made?, What is the schedule?, What is the sequence or pattern of trips?, What route choices do people make?, Why do people travel? (Why can't people stay at home and telecommute or teleshop?). For whatever reason, behaviour is evidently very volatile. These changes are driven by various factors which include: Urban Form, Socio-demographic variables, Psycho-social variables and price (Curtis and Perkins 2006). Urban form, also known as the morphology of a place is the settlement pattern of a group or sect of people which has a way of influencing travel behaviour. For instance research shows that low density, single use land zoning produces longer travel journeys and produces a greater reliance on the use of the car
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