Understanding Travel Plan Effectiveness for New Residential Developments

Abstract

Travel plans can be required for new or expanded buildings as part of the process of land use planning and approval. The purpose of these plans is to manage car use of future building occupants and support access by more sustainable forms of transport. Although the effectiveness of travel plans is generally well established at preexisting sites, there is very little evidence of the impacts when they are applied to new developments, particularly residential sites. In response to this situation, a series of multi modal person trip counts and parking surveys was undertaken at four case sites (residential developments with travel plans) and four control sites (similar residential developments without travel plans) in Melbourne, Australia. Results indicated that the average weekday (7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.) mode share for car driver trips was 14 percentage points lower at the case sites than at the control sites. The findings also highlighted issues with relying solely on comparisons with secondary data sources, such as published vehicle trip generation rates and regional travel survey data, to assess travel plan effectiveness. Such reliance was shown to lead to an overestimation of travel plan impacts because of inconsistencies in the geographical locations and data collection periods of the secondary data sources. This finding highlights the importance of using suitable control sites to account for such factors. Further work is needed to strengthen the evidence base through evaluating travel plans at other residential developments and also accounting for residential self-selection effects.

Travel Plans for New Residential Developments: Measuring Self-Selection Effects to Better Understand Travel Behavior Impacts

“…Future research into self-selection (associated with travel plans for new residential developments) should therefore look to obtain a greater sample size by collecting data from a larger number of residential sites. Here, control sites should be used to avoid comparability issues associated with secondary data (14). Opportunities to boost survey response rates should also be maximized where possible (e.g., through soliciting support from building managers).…”

“…Before-and-after travel surveys are commonly used to evaluate travel plans at preexisting sites, such as workplaces (13). However, in the context of new residential developments, before data are generally not available because the development is not usually occupied or even built (14). Evaluations of travel plans at new residential developments, therefore, tend to focus on comparisons with secondary data, such as regional travel surveys, census data, and trip generation rates.…”

“…This aspect may lead to differences in car-parking provision and the socioeconomic characteristics of residents, which will ultimately affect the comparison of travel patterns. The use of control sites with similar characteristics-and with data collected at the same time as the travel plan sites-can better account for external factors and allow for a more accurate comparison of travel patterns to be made (14).…”