Exploring the associations between E-shopping and the share of shopping trip frequency and travelled time over total daily travel demand

Abstract

How e-shopping affects shopping trip frequency and travel time has attracted considerable attention from scholars during the last decades. However, considering trip frequency and travel time in isolation hides two important issues: (i) the relevance of shopping purposes compared to the person's total daily travel; and (ii) the potential spatiotemporal constraints to shopping trips (e.g., working hours, taking care of children). This paper examines whether and how the share of both shopping trip frequency and travel time are affected by e-shopping frequency, while controlling for socio-economic attributes, geographic context, and the built environment characteristics. Fractional regression models were administered with select data from the 2017 German national travel survey, Mobilität in Deutschland (n = 19,920). The obtained results show that frequent e-shoppers tend to have a higher share of shopping trips in their total trips, while the proportion of travelled time for shopping tends to be lower. Moreover, the shares of shopping travel trip frequency and travel time are more likely to be higher for women and older people, while lower for high-income households. The concluding remarks summarize the key findings, including policy implications and limitations to be addressed in further research.