The influence of individuals’ environmental attitudes and urban design features on their travel patterns in sustainable neighborhoods in the UK

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Abstract

This paper explores the influence of individuals’ environmental attitudes and urban design features on travel behavior, including mode choice. It uses data from residents of 13 new neighborhood UK developments designed to support sustainable travel. It is found that almost all respondents were concerned about environmental issues, but their views did not necessarily ‘match’ their travel behavior. Individuals’ environmental concerns only had a strong relationship with walking within and near their neighborhood, but not with cycling or public transport use. Residents’ car availability reduced public transport trips, walking and cycling. The influence of urban design features on travel behaviors was mixed, higher incidences of walking in denser, mixed and more permeable developments were not found and nor did residents own fewer cars than the population as a whole. Residents did, however, make more sustainable commuting trips than the population in general. Sustainable modes of travel were related to urban design features including secured bike storage, high connectivity of the neighborhoods to the nearby area, natural surveillance, high quality public realm and traffic calming. Likewise the provision of facilities within and nearby the development encouraged high levels of walking.

Highlights

► The paper explores the influence of environmental attitudes and urban design on travel behavior. ► Residents’ environmental attitudes do not ‘match’ their travel behaviors. ► The influence of urban design features on sustainable travel behaviors was mixed. ► Sustainable modes of travel were found to be related to some urban design features.

Introduction

There is a belief that urban environments that are designed to particular sustainable design principles may encourage people to reduce their car use and choose more sustainable modes for their travel activities. There is a general consensus within planning and urban design policy and guidance that the ‘right’ urban design can stimulate the use of public transport, resulting in a reduction in car use. There is a vast amount of empirical evidence suggesting that car travel is lower in traditional-style neighborhoods characterized by higher densities and a mixture of land uses; accessibility is often better in this type of neighborhood with more pedestrian-orientated design features which encourage greater use of non-motorized modes.

Based on previous studies, and to promote sustainable and less car dependent developments, the UK government has published various policy documents seeking to encourage higher density, mixed-use developments; discourage out-of-town developments; and encourage the development of new pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and improved access to public transport. It is hoped that these strategies will make places more sustainable, by bringing residents closer to their destinations, reducing the need to travel, providing viable alternatives to car use and making it safer and easier for individuals to access jobs and services by energy efficient modes such as walking and cycling.

As a response to these policies and others focusing on sustainable planning many ‘sustainable’ residential schemes have been built across the UK (Williams and Dair, 2007). These schemes contain a number of ‘sustainable’ urban design features, e.g. they are higher density with more permeable layouts than previous developer norms, they may have infrastructure to support walking and cycling and include water and energy efficient elements.

This paper tests whether places that are designed to support sustainable travel actually encourage residents to travel by more sustainable modes: it considers which urban design features are associated with different modal choices. It also investigates the impact of residents’ beliefs on their travel modes, in combination with urban form features. It uses data that have been collected from 659 residents from 13 relatively new developments with a number of sustainability features in the UK.

Section snippets

Sustainable urban form and sustainable behavior

The influence of urban form on specific indices of the activities and behavior of travellers (e.g. number of trips and travel time expenditure) has been extensively examined. A general consensus is that the denser the urban structure, particularly when locating a mix of uses in close proximity to each other, the less dependence there is on the car. Such urban forms result in densities that are high enough to support public transport services and can encourage greater levels of walking and

Data and study areas

We use a dataset derived from 659 completed questionnaires from residents of 13 developments with some sustainable features in the UK. The questionnaires included questions on individual activity–travel information, such as travel mode choice, trip frequency, and activity locations. They also recorded views about environment and sustainable behaviors and also some socio-demographic information.

The questionnaires were distributed in the 13 residential schemes in the UK shown in Fig. 1. The

Travel mode and activity location

The survey results show that, as expected, there is a relationship between activity location and individual travel choice. The percentage of walking as the travellers’ main mode decreased when they accessed activities further away from their homes whilst the percentage of car usage increased.

Two-thirds of the trips to the activities within the development were on foot. However, when accessing the locations outside the nearby area, the proportion of walk tripsis reduced to 8%. Car and public

Attitudes and travel patterns

A k-cluster analysis is employed to further explore the relationships between individual and built environment factors and environmental beliefs on travel patterns. The analysis is based on residents’ travel patterns, with the 659 individuals grouped into five clusters as (Table 1). The numbers in clusters 1 and 5 are small, but statistically distinct, so have been retained. The clusters have the following characteristics:

  • 1.

    Group 1 (5% of respondents) – dominated by individuals who moved to, and

Needs, infrastructure and attitudes

Although the previous sections have suggested some built environment impacts on travel behavior, the real relationships between factors are not straight forward. There are various other factors influencing trends, including individual socio-demographic factors and attitudes. To explore the impacts of built environment and individual attitudes to mode choice in a more comprehensive way, regression analysis is used. The respondents’ socio-demographic and household characteristics are included in

Conclusions

The analysis found that, although the developments aimed, to varying degrees, to promote sustainable lifestyles, this had not been a primary motivation for most residents to move to them. Some sustainability features had been factors in their choices, but the majority of the respondents moved to gain extra house space and in many instances extra parking space. Some of the residents were in social housing so in essence were not ‘choosing’ the move in the same way as those purchasing their homes

Acknowledgments

The research reported is from ‘The Sustainable Lifestyles Project: The contribution of ‘sustainable’ new developments to sustainable lifestyles, an evaluation of schemes in the UK’. It was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, under the Sustainable Urban Environments Programme, as part of the City Form consortium. The previous version of this paper was presented at the 89th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 2010.

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