Citation

Chang GL, Lin TA, Lindely JA. Transp. Plann. Tech. 1992; 16(3): 167-193.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/03081069208717482

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A rapid growth in suburban population over the past two decades has inevitably turned once lightly?traveled rural roads to heavy traffic highways which require considerable investment for upgrading. However, such a need was not recognized in time to develop suburban?oriented traffic management strategies, and consequently led to unprecedented levels of suburban congestion. Mobility improvement in suburbs has thus become one of the most pressing transportation issues. In response to increasing public concern on this issue, a flurry of reports and articles have been produced to explore various short? and long?term strategies. However, a vital aspect, namely, a fundamental understanding of suburban commuting behavior, has not been adequately addressed. In this paper, an exploratory analysis is performed to characterize suburban commuting behavior based on a survey conducted at Parkway Center complex in suburban Dallas, Texas. Several key travel characteristic variables are identified in the exploratory analysis, and their relations with socio?economic descriptors are further investigated with discrete and continuous methods. It has been found that suburban travel patterns can reasonably be represented with the travel time and frequency of stops in daily work?to?home and home?to?work trips, and the number of mid?day trips. With these travel characteristic variables, 1005 survey respondents are classified into six distinct groups using a multivariate cluster analysis. The resulting socio?economic background of each cluster appears to reasonably account for the manifested travel pattern. Such relations have further been confirmed with the discriminant analysis where using socio?economic descriptors of each cluster one can correctly identify the travel pattern of 73.6% of survey respondents.