Download or read book The Effect of Compact Development on Travel Behavior Energy Consumption and GHG Emissions in Phoenix Metropolitan Area written by Wenwen Zhang and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suburban growth in the U.S. urban regions has been defined by large subdivisions of single-family detached units. This growth is made possible by the mobility supported by automobiles and an extensive highway network. These dispersed and highly automobile-dependent developments have generated a large body of work examining the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of suburban growth on cities. The particular debate that this study addresses is whether suburban residents are more energy intensive in their travel behavior than central city residents. If indeed suburban residents have needs that are not satisfied by the amenities around them, they may be traveling farther to access such services. However, if suburbs are becoming like cities with a wide range of services and amenities, travel might be contained and no different from the travel behavior of residents in central areas. This paper will compare the effects of long term suburban growth on travel behavior, energy consumption, and GHG emissions through a case study of neighborhoods in central Phoenix and the city of Gilbert, both in the Phoenix metropolitan region. Motorized travel patterns in these study areas will be generated using 2001 and 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data by developing a four-step transportation demand model in TransCAD. Energy consumption and GHG emissions, including both Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Nitrous Oxide (N2O) for each study area will be estimated based on the corresponding trip distribution results. The final normalized outcomes will not only be compared spatially between Phoenix and Gilbert within the same year, but also temporally between years 2001 and 2009 to determine how the differential land use changes in those places influenced travel. The results from this study reveal that suburban growth does have an impact on people's travel behaviors. As suburbs grew and diversified, the difference in travel behavior between people living in suburban and urban areas became smaller. In the case of shopping trips the average length of trips for suburban residents in 2009 was slightly shorter than that for central city residents. This convergence was substantially due to the faster growth in trip lengths for central city compared to suburban residents in the 8-year period. However, suburban residents continue to be more energy intensive in their travel behavior, as the effect of reduction in trip length is likely to be offset by the more intensive growth in trip frequency. Additionally, overall energy consumption has grown significantly in both study areas over the period of study.

Download or read book Driving and the Built Environment written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-01-25 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: TRB Special Report 298: Driving and the Built Environment: Effects of Compact Development on Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO2 Emissions examines the relationship between land development patterns and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the United States to assess whether petroleum use, and by extension greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, could be reduced by changes in the design of development patterns. The report estimates the contributions that changes in residential and mixed-use development patterns and transit investments could make in reducing VMT by 2030 and 2050, and the impact this could have in meeting future transportation-related GHG reduction goals.

Download or read book Driving and the Built Environment written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Growing Cooler written by Reid H. Ewing and published by Urban Land Institute. This book was released on 2008 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a comprehensive study review by leading urban planning researchers, this investigative document demonstrates how urban development is both a key contributor to climate change and an essential factor in combating it -- by reducing vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

Download or read book Automobile Path Dependence in Phoenix written by Mindy Kimball and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A methodology is developed that integrates institutional analysis with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to identify and overcome barriers to sustainability transitions and to bridge the gap between environmental practitioners and decisionmakers. LCA results are rarely joined with analyses of the social systems that control or influence decisionmaking and policies. As a result, LCA conclusions generally lack information about who or what controls different parts of the system, where and when the processes' environmental decisionmaking happens, and what aspects of the system (i.e. a policy or regulatory requirement) would have to change to enable lower environmental impact futures. The value of the combined institutional analysis and LCA (the IA-LCA) is demonstrated using a case study of passenger transportation in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. A retrospective LCA is developed to estimate how roadway investment has enabled personal vehicle travel and its associated energy, environmental, and economic effects. Using regional travel forecasts, a prospective life cycle inventory is developed. Alternative trajectories are modeled to reveal future "savings" from reduced roadway construction and vehicle travel. An institutional analysis matches the LCA results with the specific institutions, players, and policies that should be targeted to enable transitions to these alternative futures. The results show that energy, economic, and environmental benefits from changes in passenger transportation systems are possible, but vary significantly depending on the timing of the interventions. Transition strategies aimed at the most optimistic benefits should include 1) significant land-use planning initiatives at the local and regional level to incentivize transit-oriented development infill and urban densification, 2) changes to state or federal gasoline taxes, 3) enacting a price on carbon, and 4) nearly doubling vehicle fuel efficiency together with greater market penetration of alternative fuel vehicles. This aggressive trajectory could decrease the 2050 energy consumption to 1995 levels, greenhouse gas emissions to 1995, particulate emissions to 2006, and smog-forming emissions to 1972. The potential benefits and costs are both private and public, and the results vary when transition strategies are applied in different spatial and temporal patterns.

Download or read book Effect of Smart Growth Policies on Travel Demand written by Maren Outwater, Colin Smith, Jerry Walters, Brian Welch, Robert Cervero, Kara Kockelman, and J. Richard Kuzmyak and published by Transportation Research Board. This book was released on with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report from the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2), which is administered by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, explores the underlying relationships among households, firms, and travel demand. The report also describes a regional scenario planning tool that can be used to evaluate the impacts of various smart growth policies.

Download or read book Effects of Built Environments on Travel Behavior and Emissions written by Jin Hyun Hong and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban transportation researchers have been studying the relationship between land use policy and travel behavior for several decades due to the topic's great importance in public policy-making. Because of the improvements in energy efficiency, large reductions in emissions have been achieved for a given amount of travel. Unfortunately, the rapid growth in total travel distance over the past several decades, especially for light duty vehicles, has reduced the benefits from technological improvements. Therefore, many urban planners have suggested land use planning as an alternative and fundamental way to reduce auto dependency and thereby, transportation emissions. However, several empirical studies about the linkage between built environments and travel behavior produced mixed results. In light of the inconsistent findings, research efforts to reconcile the discrepancy among different studies are required. Several methodological issues are found based on the previous literature and four main challenges are addressed in this study: self-selection, spatial autocorrelation, trip-interdependency, and geographic scale. In addition, two key methodological issues in modeling transportation emissions are found and addressed. First, transportation emissions per person are often estimated by using vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and emissions factors, but these emissions factors do not fully consider variations in travel speed and vehicle characteristics. Second, VMT and emissions factors are associated with travel characteristics, implying that the same methodological challenges existing in the land use-travel behavior analysis can exist in the land use-transportation emissions analysis. This research obtained several important results. First, increasing residential density can reduce VMT and emissions significantly. In addition, the impact of residential density on VMT is higher than that on transportation emissions, indicating that negative externalities such as congestion generated from compact developments should be considered in the land use-transportation emissions analysis. Second, analyses show that the effects of land use factors on VMT and emissions are different according to tour types and geographic scales. These results imply that different land use policies should be implemented according to neighborhoods characteristics. Finally, the sensitivity analyses of built environment factors show that ignoring trip and vehicle characteristics in the emissions calculation can inflate the influences of built environments on emissions.

Download or read book Unraveling the Effects of Land Use Planning and Energy Policy on Travel Behavior written by Harya S. Dillon and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This three-essay dissertation focuses on understanding linkages between urban form, travel behavior, ownership of alternative fuel vehicles, active commuting, congestion, fuel consumption, and air pollution (including greenhouse gas emissions). These essays estimated different specifications of Generalized Structural Equation Models (GSEM) to explicitly account for residential self-selection and vehicle choice endogeneities.The first essay analyzes the influence of land use policies and gasoline prices on driving patterns. I estimated a Generalized Structural Equation Model (GSEM) with a Tobit-link specification on a Southern California subsample of the 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS). These data haves a quasi-experimental nature thanks to large exogenous variation in gasoline price during the survey period. I analyzed separately home-based work trips and non-work trips under the hypothesis that households have more flexibility to adjust their non-work trips when gasoline prices change, whereas most of the literature does not take trip purpose into account. To measure urban form, which is treated as a latent construct, I used fine-grained geospatial information including population density, land use mix, employment density, distance to employment centers and transit availability. I found that, in the short run, households drive 0.171% less for non-work trips when gasoline prices increase by 1%, while work trips are not responsive to gasoline price changes. This suggests that, in the short term, higher fuel prices reduce discretionary driving such as shopping and recreational trips, but they do not affect non-discretionary driving such as commuting trips. My results also suggest that policies that seek to increase transit service and housing opportunities near employment centers will reduce driving.The second essay investigates the impact of government incentives such as access exemption to High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and parking privileges on household ownership of Alternative Fuel Vehicles (AFVs) using Generalized Structural Equation Models (GSEM), and accounts for residential self-selection, household demographics and ambient political-environmentalism. I analyzed geocoded travel diary data from the 2012 California Household Travel Survey (CHTS), linked with fueling station data from the US Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center and precinct level election data from the UC Berkeley Statewide Database. My findings suggest that, on average, households with alternative fuel vehicles drive approximately 10 miles more on weekdays and about 0.5 miles more on non-discretionary trips than otherwise similar households. In addition, households who live closer to a freeway with HOV lanes, work closer to an AFV charging facility (that provides free parking), and are likely supportive of pro-environmental measures are more likely to own alternative fuel vehicles.The third essay examines the influence of urban form on transit use and non-motorized travel (NMT, including biking and walking) for households (with at least one employed adult) in Los Angeles and Orange Counties in California based on 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data. The objectives of the research are (1) to assess several methods for measuring urban form features in the near-residence and near-workplace environments and (2) to assess the importance of these urban form features on transit use and NMT after accounting for the influence of these features on household vehicle ownership and residential selection. Results provide insights into the relative influence of several specifications of population density, transit access and walkability measures on transit use and NMT for commute and non-work trips. Reduced form models suggest that the dominant determinant of discretionary travel is household socio-demographic status. In terms of residential selection, lower income, younger, and smaller households are more likely to choose a dense, pedestrian friendly, and transit rich neighborhood. In terms of vehicle ownership, households living in high density, pedestrian friendly, and transit rich neighborhoods are less likely to own vehicles. After accounting for the influence of urban form on vehicle ownership and residential selection, workplace transit accessibility has greater influence on transit commuting than transit access near a household's residence. Results vary by how urban form is specified and by the source of travel data. Finally, there is some evidence that population density affects active travel for discretionary purposes.

Download or read book Case Studies of Transit Energy and Air Pollution Impacts written by James P. Curry and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Modeling Urban Transportation Emissions and Energy Use written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Travel Behavior Energy Use and Carbon Emissions written by Shengyuan Zhang and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In many developing and emerging economies, rapid income growth and changing demographics is leading to heightened demand for energy-intensive urban transportation. This study provides a comprehensive empirical framework for analyzing how income, age, and education influence individual energy use and carbon emissions through multiple dimensions of travel behavior, including number of trips, trip distance, transportation mode choice, vehicle ownership, and fuel economy of cars. Analyzing travel diary survey data collected by the authors in Shenzhen in 2014, we find that energy consumption and carbon emissions increase almost proportionally to income, and that older age and more education increase energy use and carbon emissions substantially, with the relative importance of different channels varying by factor.

Download or read book Unpacking the Complex Relationship Between Land Use Vehicle Travel and Transportation Greenhouse Gas GHG Emissions written by Kwangyul Choi and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation research aims to disentangle the relationship between land use, vehicle travel, and transportation greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A great number of studies have paid attention to the impact of land use on transportation GHG emissions using vehicle miles traveled (VMT) as a substitute. Most studies equated VMT reduction with reduction of transportation GHG emissions. Few have examined in depth the varying components that affect transportation GHG emissions in vehicle travel operational dimensions. Moreover, few have applied the use of larger geographic-level land use. These studies, however, have limitations in examining a comprehensive relationship between land use and transportation GHG emissions. This dissertation research therefore focuses on the links between land-use measures at various geographic levels and household vehicle travel characteristics impacts on transportation GHG emissions. In doing so, this dissertation research consists of the three closely related research questions. Using the 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), this research first examines whether neighborhood-level land use attributes proportionally affect household daily VMT and transportation GHG emissions (CO2e). A series of multiple regression models developed in Chapter Four address the impact of land use on household vehicle travel characteristics and transportation GHG emissions. Results suggest that land use strategies at the neighborhood level such as densification, a mixture of land use, and improvement of road connectivity can play a significant role in reducing vehicle travel. However, these land use changes may cause traffic delays in the area. Chapter Five focuses on the impact of multiple geographic-level land use (i.e., neighborhood, county, and MSA) on both household VMT and transportation GHG emissions by applying hierarchical linear modeling. Results suggest that the effectiveness of similar strategies can vary by geographic scales at which those strategies are implemented. Chapter Six examines the intervening effects of vehicle travel characteristics on transportation GHG emissions by employing structural equation modeling. Results suggest that land use at various geographic levels influence not only household VMT but also vehicle travel speed and vehicle trip frequency, which together in turn affect household transportation GHG emissions. Finally, this research presents a case study of the Austin, TX region using the 2006 Austin Travel Survey (ATS) in Chapter Seven. Applying a path model similar to the one developed in the preceding chapter, this study scrutinizes the role of land use in reducing transportation GHG emissions in both regional and local contexts. Results suggest that densification and a mixture of land use are still effective land use strategies to reduce region-wide emissions. However, design improvement can be a double-edged sword because of its unintended effect of reduced vehicle travel speed. Overall, the findings contend that both travel demand management and mobility management at various geographic levels should be fully discussed in the early stages of planning. In addition, the role of metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in controlling regional development should be extended. The expansion of authorities and responsibilities of MPOs may enable the region at all levels to be developed more sustainably.

Download or read book Capturing the Impacts of Land Use on Travel Behavior written by Veronica Adelle Hannan and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most urban planning literature suggests that compact and mixed-use neighborhoods correlate with lower vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT), and accordingly, lower energy consumption and transportation-related emissions. However, many of these studies also find that the relationship between urban form and travel behavior is marginal at best, and several commit analytical errors, which may compromise the robustness of parameter estimates. This thesis examines daily travel behavior in Santiago de Chile to understand how demographic structure, neighborhood design, and regional accessibility influence travel behavior as measured through emitted grams of five criteria pollutants (C0 2, VOCs, PM10, CO and NO,). To answer this question, two different modeling techniques are employed to investigate the variables related to car ownership and travel behavior. The first analysis uses a discrete-continuous choice model to understand the attributes that influence car-ownership and travel emissions. The second study uses structural equation modeling to simultaneously estimate latent urban form factors, car-ownership and emitted pollutants. The advantage of each technique is that they both offer the flexibility to address the four major methodological errors identified in the literature review: inulticollinearity, spatial auto-correlation, the modifiable areal unit problem and self-selection. After controlling for the four methods-related gaps, both models find that, although economic and demographic characteristics dominate in explaining travel decisions, the built environment plays a small, but significant, role. The discrete-continuous choice model uses two classes of measures to capture urban form: local attributes and regional accessibility. It finds that neighborhood-level and regional characteristics have an equally important impact on 2 or 3-plus vehicle ownership.Furthermore, the model suggests that regional accessibility attributes dominate among the built environment measures in explaining variations in emitted travel pollutants. The structural equation model uses three latent urban form factors to characterize the built environment: a high-intensity, mixed-use factor; a high-income residential factor; and a non-gridded street factor. It finds that the high-density, mixed-use factor decreases the utility of owning a vehicle, and reduces the likelihood of travel emissions. The latter two factors, on the other hand, both increase the probability of owning a car. Lastly, the non-gridded street factor has a consistently positive effect on travel emissions.

Download or read book Transportation Energy Futures Series Effects of Travel Reduction and Efficient Driving on Transportation Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1970s, numerous transportation strategies have been formulated to change the behavior of drivers or travelers by reducing trips, shifting travel to more efficient modes, or improving the efficiency of existing modes. This report summarizes findings documented in existing literature to identify strategies with the greatest potential impact. The estimated effects of implementing the mostsignificant and aggressive individual driver behavior modification strategies range from less than 1% to a few percent reduction in transportation energy use and GHG emissions. Combined strategies result in reductions of 7% to 15% by 2030. Pricing, ridesharing, eco-driving, and speed limit reduction/enforcement strategies are widely judged to have the greatest estimated potential effect, butlack the widespread public acceptance needed to accomplish maximum results. This is one of a series of reports produced as a result of the Transportation Energy Futures (TEF) project, a Department of Energy-sponsored multi-agency project initiated to pinpoint underexplored strategies for abating GHGs and reducing petroleum dependence related to transportation.

Download or read book Sustainability Implications of Mass Rapid Transit on the Built Environment and Human Travel Behavior in Suburban Neighborhoods written by Liou Xie and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sustainability impacts of the extension of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system in suburban Beijing are explored. The research focuses on the neighborhood level, assessing sustainability impacts in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and energy consumption. By emphasizing suburban neighborhoods, the research targets the longest commuting trips, which have the most potential to generate significant sustainability benefits. The methodology triangulates analyses of urban and transportation plans, secondary data, time series spatial imagery, household surveys, and field observation. Three suburban neighborhoods were selected as case studies. Findings include the fact that MRT access stimulates residential development significantly, while having limited impact in terms of commercial or mixed-use (transit-oriented development) property development. While large-scale changes in land use and urban form attributable to MRT access are rare once an area is built up, adaptation occurs in the functions of buildings and areas near MRT stations, such as the emergence of first floor commercial uses in residential buildings. However, station precincts also attract street vendors, tricycles, illegal taxis and unregulated car parking, often impeding access and making immediate surroundings of MRT stations unattractive, perhaps accounting for the lack of significant accessibility premiums (identified by the researcher) near MRT stations in suburban Beijing. Household-based travel behavior surveys reveal that public transport, i.e., MRT and buses, accounts for over half of all commuting trips in the three case study suburban neighborhoods. Over 30% of the residents spend over an hour commuting to work, reflecting the prevalence of long-distance commutes, associated with a dearth of workplaces in suburban Beijing. Non-commuting trips surprisingly tell a different story, a large portion of the residents choose to drive because they are less restrained by travel time. The observed increase of the share of MRT trips to work generates significant benefits in terms of lowered energy consumption, reduced greenhouse gas and traditional air pollution emissions. But such savings could be easily offset if the share of driving trips increases with growing affluence, given the high emission intensities of cars. Bus use is found to be responsible for high local conventional air pollution, indicating that the current bus fleet in Beijing should be phased out and replaced by cleaner buses. Policy implications are put forward based on these findings. The Intellectual Merit of this study centers on increased understanding of the relationship between mass transit provision and sustainability outcomes in suburban metropolitan China. Despite its importance, little research of this genre has been undertaken in China. This study is unique because it focuses on the intermediate meso scale, where adaptation occurs more quickly and dramatically, and is easier to identify.

Download or read book Moving Cooler written by Cambridge Systematics and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Both the public and private sectors are grappling with decisions regarding policies that will lead to reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Moving Cooler analyzes and assesses the effectiveness and costs of almost 50 transportation strategies for reducing GHG emissions, as well as evaluates combinations of those strategies. The findings of this study can help decision makers coordinate and shape effective approaches to reducing GHG emissions at all levels - national, regional, and local - while also meeting broader transportation objectives." --Book Jacket.

Download or read book Quantifying Transit s Impact on GHG Emissions and Energy Use written by Frank Gallivan and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 176: Quantifying Transit’s Impact on GHG Emissions and Energy Use—The Land Use Component examines interrelationships between transit and land use patterns to understand their contribution to compact development and the potential greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction benefits." --Publisher's description