From Excess Commuting to Commuting Possibilities: More Extension to the Concept of Excess Commuting

Abstract

The excess-commuting literature provides a methodological framework in which the observed average commute (C obs ) is compared with theoretical commuting values: the minimum (C min ) and maximum (C max ) average commute. In this paper, I argue that real spatial behavior is ill represented by the two assumptions of optimal (minimizing or maximizing) behavior. C min and C max are in fact extreme values of a much richer distribution of commuting possibilities. I argue that all those possibilities should be taken into account in the evaluation of C obs . In order to do this, I develop a probabilistic framework where any urban form is associated with a statistical distribution of commuting possibilities, with an average and a standard deviation, within which C min and C max represent extreme and very improbable outcomes. Applied to a sample of fifty metropolitan areas, this framework helps us understand the combined association of spatial behavior and urban form with commuting.

Jobs-housing balance in an era of population decentralization: An analytical framework and a case study

“…The resulting jobs-housing imbalance has been analyzed both theoretically and empirically by urban economists, geographers and planners with increasingly refined methodological tools for measuring jobs-housing balance (Giuliano and Small, 1993;Peng, 1997;Sultana, 2002), minimum commute (Buliung and Kanaroglou, 2002;Hamilton, 1982Hamilton, , 1989White, 1988), excess commute (Charron, 2007;Ma and Banister, 2006a;Yang, 2008), maximum commute (Black and Katakos, 1987;Charron, 2007;Horner, 2002;Ma and Banister, 2007), spatial mismatch (Horner and Mefford, 2007;Immergluck, 1998;Niedzielski, 2006) and accessibility (El-Geneidy and Levinson, 2006). Nonetheless, as Ma and Banister (2007) has pointed out, a comparison of the rates of excess commute among different cities is largely meaningless because of the heterogeneity of housing and/or jobs.…”

Relationship between Spatial Proximity and Travel-to-Work Distance: The Effect of the Compact City

“…The minimum commuting distance stems from the research on excess commuting (HAMILTON, 1982;MA and BANISTER, 2006;MA and BANISTER, 2007;CHARRON, 2007), and is in this case considered as a spatial characteristic (NIEDZIELSKI, 2006;BOUSSAUW et al, 2010).…”

Impact of Megacity Jobs-Housing Spatial Mismatch on Commuting Behaviors: A Case Study on Central Districts of Shanghai, China

“…Horner (2002) [32] proposed new index termed commuting potential utilized that considered both the theoretical minimum (T min ) and maximum commute (T max ). Charron (2007) [33] suggested an alternative commuting upper bound, the random commute. Murphy and Killen (2011) [34] later expanded on the random commuting work to propose the commuting economy index and a revised measure of commuting potential utilized called normalized commuting economy.…”