The last decade saw major changes in travel patterns in the UK. The increased mobility and spending power and choice of location of new developments have all contributed to a great extent to these changes. Over a period of 4 years (1986-1990), extensive research was conducted at Imperial College, University of London, into the trip making pattern of visitors to newly developed off-centre commercial developments. The main objective of the research programme was to determine the traffic generation characteristics of recently developed non-food retail warehouses and retail warehouses in off-centre urban sites. In the first phase of the study, the traffic characteristics investigated at selected sites in South East England were: daily variations in traffic flows; visitation rates in relation to gross floor area; peak entry and exit flows; parking provision, duration and accumulation, and employment densities and heavy goods delivery rates. In the second phase retail warehouse parks were investigated. Over 3000 interviews were carried out at selected sites, and surveys took place at five retail warehouse parks: Roebuck Retail Park, Stevenage; Beckton Retail Park, Newnham, Greater London; Telford Bridge Retail Park; Peel Centre in Epsom; and County Oak Retail Park, Crawley. The results have confirmed some of the previously known patterns, and provided very interesting results on the new types of trips that people are making. A critical argument is presented, based on empirical findings, as to whether the new developments generate any new trips or simply re-distribute them, hence freeing town centres from unnecessary congestion and pollution.
Abstract