EuroCities Distance Activity Travel Time Accessibility – EuoCitiesDATTA

Problem - While European cities look currently less energy intensive and less greedy as regard distances travelled and travel time than North-American ones some worrying developments can be observed. These developments yield serious concern regarding the sustainability of these cities. This proposal aims at exploring the factors behind this double growth of travel time and distances travelled, with its implications on spatial, temporal and social dimensions of activity patterns. For instance previous research shows important differences in travel time budget between Swiss, Belgian and French cities. These differences in mobility behaviour seem to find explanations in urban organisations and transport policy. Furthermore, activity patterns and hence travel times and distances travelled result from a trade-off and/or interconnection between numerous individual and social dimensions, such as the residential location choice, the location and duration of activities, the need for social interaction, the transport supply and so on. In our project the activity pattern, a highly complex object, will be approached through analysing travel duration in relationship with activity duration, within an urban space characterised by heterogeneous accessibility levels. - - Given the need for diverse methods and viewpoints in approaching this complex object, an interdisciplinary partnership has been established between LET, LASUR and GRT. The three partners research approaches range from economics, to econometrics, statistics, sociology, and geomatics. - - Methodology - Empirical material consists in an already established database of more than 70.000 activity patterns observed in nine French, Swiss and Belgian cities between 1985 and 2006. Furthermore, travel surveys will be completed with in-depth interviews on GPS based behaviour in the 3 countries. - - Questions on mobility behaviour relating to the urban and transport system impact on travel times and to the link between travel times and activity duration will be addressed through the following directions: - At an aggregated level, the international comparison of mobility and time-use will take into account transport policy and urban context. - At a disaggregated level, the activity diary and the spatial context are explored in the following directions: - - impact of accessibility on travel times and mobility indicators such as trips number and distances travelled, - - link between travel time and activity patterns, for example the travel time intensity of activities, - - sociological and economic analysis of atypical behaviours such as very high travel time budgets, - - exploration of long term temporal regularities in mobility and activity behaviour (on a weekly or monthly time-scale), based on in-depth interviews with GPS. - - Expected Results - The research will be conducted through six workpackages (WP). Based on the international comparison of transport behaviour in the nine different cities, the first WP will give further insights about the urban spatial organisation and transport policy impacts on mobility behaviour. The disaggregated analyses of activity patterns will produce an econometric duration model estimating jointly the activity episode duration (WP2). The WP3 will define and produce a tractable activity-based accessibility indicator for Lyon, using a Geographic Information System including a detailed description of transport supply. This indicator will be introduced in the econometric duration model and is expected to be a discriminating variable of the activity patterns. The identification of long term temporal regularities of mobility and activity will be the object of the WP4. The WP5 will present the sociological exploration of travel time and travelled space perceptions, based on in-depth interviews conducted in the three countries. Finally the WP6 will produce a synthesis of the whole research based on the 5 WP results and 6 international workshops organised during the rese...