Policy measures to manage the demand for private car use are contemplated in metropolitan areas all over the world. A first step in evaluating the effectiveness of travel demand measures such as traffic regulations in city centres is determining how their implementation changes the travel options faced by households in different segments. Geocoded Swedish travel diary data was analysed from the city of Goeteborg, Sweden (pop. 471,400) collected from 1994 to 2001 (approximately 7,000 trips). Of relevance to the present research, the data set contains information about individuals' travel on a particular day broken down by travel destination, travel mode, and purpose. Furthermore, the data include sociodemographic information describing the individual and other members of the household (income, occupation, employment, age, gender, family structure, residence, number of automobiles, driving license). The aim is to determine how many car trips to the city centre would be affected by the introduction of traffic regulations in different zones varying in size different times of day and weekdays. The effects on different trip purposes such as work, shopping and leisure were compared in order to judge the feasibility of suppression of these trips. With the aim of comparing congestion pricing to traffic zone regulations, the additional travel costs incurred by various congestion-pricing schedules were calculated. Logistic regression analyses are performed to identify individual and household characteristics that relate to changes in travel options. The possible application of the results to other metropolitan areas is discussed. For the covering abstract see ITRD E126595.
Abstract