Beyond the Built Environment at Home: Does Compact Development Along Commuting Routes Reduce Driving and Conserve Fuel?

摘要

While extensive research has investigated how the built environment near people’s homes and workplaces influence automobile travel behavior, little is known about how commuting routes affect traveloutcomes. This article presents an empirical study of the influences of the built environment alongcommuting routes on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and fuel consumption for non-work automobile travel.Using a unique Global Positioning Systems (GPS) dataset collected from automobile trips of 46 driversfrom the Southeast Michigan area over a 30 day time frame, this study identifies the actual commutingroutes for all drivers and derives their fuel consumption for non-work travel. The results do not supportthe contention that commuting routes characterized by more compact and mixed-use development havethe effect of reducing non-work VMT and fuel consumption. This study is unique in its focus on thecommuting routes and in establishing a method for using GPS data in transportation and land-use research,and it offers suggestions for refining the modeling of travel behavior along commuting routes.