Assessing Urban Context-Induced Change in Individual Activity Travel Patterns: Case Study of New Railway Station

Abstract

Findings are reported of selective descriptive analyses that were conducted to examine whether the opening of a new railway station had induced any changes in the activity travel patterns of a panel of households. In particular, changes in choices related to trip generation, trip chaining, transport mode, activity start time, and activity duration were analyzed. Moreover, differences in complete activity travel patterns before and after the opening of the new railway station were investigated. The results indicate that the introduction of the railway station led to a change in work pattern, an increase in out-of-home leisure activities, and a decrease in trip chaining. As a result, total travel distance has not increased significantly, but the travel distance by car has decreased. However, before-and-after studies like this cannot exclude the possibility that the factor of time is responsible for or has contributed to the change.