The use of activity-based modeling to analyze the effect of land-use policies on travel behavior

Abstract

This paper suggests that in order to analyze the effect of land-use policies on travel behavior an integrated framework that extend travel activity-based models to include various land-use issues such as residential location and work place should be developed and use. The importance of analyzing various land-use policies on travel behavior is continuously increasing as various policies such as transit-oriented developments, mixed land-use, different concentrations schemes, and more broadly Smart Growth, are often suggested as a means to mitigate transportation problems. Given our limited understanding of the effects of the various land-use polices on travel behavior it is imported to develop better approaches to analyze such policies. Activity-based models, that treat travel as a derivation of the demand for personal activities, provides an opportunity to better understand travel behavior as the explicit modeling of activities and the consequent tours and trips enable a more credible analysis of responses to policies and their effect on traffic and air quality. The theoretical framework of activity-based models starts with urban and land-use development as inputs; however, there is a need to translate this framework to analyze specific land-use policies. This paper discusses the advantages and potential of activity-based models for analyzing the effect of land-use policies on travel behavior. It suggests improvements that will extend the general framework to achieve a better understanding of travelers' responses to various land-use policies and shows its advantages over tip-based models, which simply do not have such capabilities. The improved activity-based approach is illustrated through a case study based on the Portland activity-based model combined with a stated-preference residential choice model. A package of land-use policies' including improved land-use, school quality, safety, and transit service in the city center - is introduced, and its effect on household redistribution and regional travel is tested using this integrated framework. The results of this case study show that the effects of the land-use policies introduced had only marginal effects on regional travel. © Springer-Verlag 2007.