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Validating the Relationship Between Urban Form and Travel Behavior with Vehicle Miles Travelled

The validity of the influence of urban form on travel behavior has been a topic of
interest in travel behavior research. Empirical research shows that urban form influences
travel behavior causing less travel impacts. However, according to the conventional
travel impact assessment following the ITE?s (Institute of Transportation Engineers)
Trip Generation Handbook, developments with higher levels of urban form measures
will generate a greater travel impacts because they generate higher number of trips. The
ITE Trip Generation Handbook is typically used as a guideline to estimate the number
of trips generated by a development. The hypothesis made in the present research is that
a development defined with higher levels of land use mix, street connectivity and
residential density will generate a higher number of trips because of the greater
accessibility but they will be shorter in length. Therefore, the effective distance travelled
will be less even though higher numbers of trips are generated. Considering the distance
travelled on a roadway will be an appropriate unit for measuring the travel impacts, the
research argues that VMT (Vehicle Miles Travelled) can be a better measurement unit
than the number of trips to validate the influence of urban form on travel behavior.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-08-7195
Date14 January 2010
CreatorsKakumani, Rajanesh
ContributorsDumbaugh, Eric
Source SetsTexas A and M University
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeBook, Thesis, Electronic Thesis
Formatapplication/pdf

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