The financial and environmental effects of traffic congestion and automobile-centric air pollution continue to be problems that must be addressed within the United States. In response, travel demand management (TDM) has emerged as a potential way to reduce automobile-based travel in order to minimize these effects. TDM strategies are highly dependent on specific urban form characteristics such as bicycle lanes, sidewalks, or transit facilities. A current gap exists in the analytical tools available to transportation planners when evaluating TDM projects. The standard transportation models do not take into account urban form characteristics in a systematic way. These characteristics play an import role in an individual's selection of walking, bicycling, or transit based travel modes. This gap needs to be filled in order to evaluate TDM projects with the same decision-making rigor that is applied to road expansion projects. The purpose of this project is to develop an enhanced transportation mode choice model that presents a systematic approach for incorporating urban form characteristics. This approach determines which elements of urban form have the strongest influence on transportation mode choice behavior. This work is being done in conjunction with the Roanoke Valley Allegheny Metropolitan Planning Organization as a way to evaluate the potential of TDM projects in promoting non-automobile forms of travel within the Roanoke region. This approach to developing an enhanced transportation mode choice model is a step forward in address the gap between TDM strategies and the tools needed to evaluate them. / Master of Urban and Regional Planning

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:00:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 3798.pdf: 2095976 bytes, checksum: b15115384f7a1b3abfa6d6b28d9ed7a0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-10-22 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / In the late years, the number of children who go to school by active modes of transport has decreased significantly. This fact causes several problems both in the area of urban transport (creating traffic congestions and accidents in the school neighborhood during the periods of starting and finishing classes) and in the area of public health (increasing the indices of child obesity). In this context, the objective of this research is to identify which factors influence the mode choice of elementary school children to access the schools. The focus of the research are the public elementary schools, because the geographic area that these schools traditionally serve (neighborhoods) permits that the trips be made by non motorized modes, for a great fraction of the students. The case study was developed in the city of São Carlos, SP with students that attend Municipal Elementary Schools. The survey was carried with the students´ parents by means of questionnaires about the children s personal characteristics, as well as their perception of the route from the residence to the school. The data showed that several factors influence the mode choice for the children trip to school, like the perception of safety and security in the neighborhood, the automobile availability in the residence, the parents habits and culture in relation to the motorized modes of transport and the distance for the residence to the school (the factor that proved to have the strongest impact in the parents decision). The discrete choice models were chosen for the estimation of the modal choice because they are largely used in transportation studies. Among the models that were tested, the multinomial logit was the most adequate. The calibrated model showed satisfactory and significant results, demonstrating that the chosen approach is adequate to the analysis of the mode choice for the trips of children to school. / Nos últimos anos, o número de crianças que vão por modos ativos para a escola vem diminuindo significativamente. Este fato causa problemas tanto na área de transporte urbano, (gerando congestionamentos e acidentes na região das escolas nos horários de entrada e saída) como na área de saúde pública (aumentando os índices de obesidade infantil). Neste contexto, esta pesquisa visa identificar quais os fatores que influenciam na opção de modo de transporte para acesso das crianças à escola. O foco da pesquisa são as escolas de ensino público fundamental porque a área geográfica que estas escolas tradicionalmente servem (bairros) permite que as viagens se dêem por modos não motorizados, para uma grande parcela dos alunos. O estudo de caso foi realizado na cidade de São Carlos, SP, junto aos alunos de Escolas Municipais de Ensino Básico (EMEBs). A coleta de dados foi realizada junto aos pais dos alunos através de questionários sobre características pessoais das crianças, bem como a percepção do ambiente a ser percorrido no caminho casa-escola. Os dados demonstraram que vários fatores influenciam a escolha do modo de transporte das crianças para a escola, como a percepção de seguridade e segurança do bairro, a disponibilidade de automóveis nas residências, os hábitos e a cultura dos pais em relação ao uso de modos motorizados e a distância casa-escola (fator de maior impacto na decisão dos pais). Para estimativa do modelo de opção modal, optou-se pelo uso de modelos de escolha discreta, devido ao fato de este modelo ser largamente utilizado para estudos na área de transportes. Dentre os modelos testados, o modelo logit multinomial se mostrou mais adequado. O modelo calibrado apresentou resultados satisfatórios e significativos, demonstrando que a abordagem utilizada é adequada à análise da escolha modal para viagens de crianças para a escola.