Examining consumer behavior and travel choices.

Details

• Creators:
  Clifton, Kelly J. ; Muhs, Christopher ; Morrissey, Sara ; Morrissey, Tomás ; Currans, Kristina ; Ritter, Chloe
• Corporate Creators:
  Portland State University. Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Research and Innovative Technology Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Consumer behavior
  • Pedestrians
  • Cyclists
  • Transit riders
  • Business districts
  • Economic impacts
  • Mode choice
  • Automobile drivers Consumption (Economics)
  • Consumer behavior
  • Pedestrians
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  OTREC-RR-12-15
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Oregon
• Corporate Publisher:
  Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium
• Abstract:
  This study represents a first attempt to answer a few of the questions that have arisen concerning multimodal transportation investments and the ; impacts of mode shifts on the business community. This research aims to merge the long history of scholarly work that examines the impacts of ; the built environment on non-work travel with the relatively new interest in consumer spending by mode of travel. This empirical study of travel ; choices and consumer spending across 89 businesses in the Portland metropolitan area shows there are important differences between the amounts ; customers spend on average at various businesses by their mode of travel. However, these differences become less pronounced when we control ; for demographics of the customer and other attributes of the trip. This study of consumer spending and travel choices has some compelling ; findings that suggest some key spending and frequency differences by mode of travel that will likely invigorate the discussion of the economic ; impacts of these modes. ; Key findings are: 1) Bicyclists, pedestrians and transit riders are competitive consumers: When demographics and socioeconomics are controlled ; for, mode choice does not have a statistically significant impact on consumer spending at convenience stores, drinking establishments and ; restaurants. When trip frequency is accounted for, the average monthly expenditures by customer modes of travel reveal that bicyclists, transit ; users and pedestrians are competitive consumers and, for all businesses except supermarkets, spend more on average than those who drive and 2) ; The built environment matters: We support previous literature and find that residential and employment density, the proximity to rail transit, and ; the amount of automobile and bicycle parking are all important in explaining the use of non-automobile modes. In particular, provision of bike ; parking and bike corrals are significant predictors of bike mode share at the establishment level. ; Other findings lend more insight into the relationship between consumer behavior and travel choices. For the non-work destinations studied, the ; automobile remains the dominant mode of travel. Patrons are largely arriving by private vehicle to most of the destinations in this study, ; particularly to grocery stores where larger quantities of goods tend to be purchased. But, high non-automobile mode shares and short travel ; distances exist in areas of concentrated urban activity. ; In sum, this study provides some empirical evidence to answer the questions of business owners about how mode shifts might impact their market ; shares and revenues. More work is needed to better understand the implications of future changes and to provide a robust assessment of the returns ; on these investments and their economic impacts.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  2011-411
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/25659/dot_25659_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.22 MB]
• Collection(s):
  University Transportation Centers ; US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1a1a94d1d084ce3bd70711c4e756632454eb5ab22cfeea9da5ae7b4fb04baf3d3ea3ed242a08daf34c580b4e18adb2575e1493c66ea02c40732184fe949d522d