The links between where we live and how we commute

Analysis: land-use and transport policies must be coordinated to make walking, cycling and taking the bus more competitive

By Frank Crowley, Justin Doran, Nóirín McCarthy and Conor O'Driscoll, UCC

Commute mode choice is the mode of travel we choose to use when travelling to and from work. Many factors influence this decision, such as age, financial circumstances, where we live and the availability of infrastructure.

Commuting to work is a staple trip in global households. Given the current climate crisis, it is important to implement policies which reduce unsustainable behaviours. One way to pursue this involves reducing car use for commuting by encouraging more walking, cycling and public transport use. Policymakers can achieve this by making these more competitive through the coordination of land-use and transport policies.

Our research focuses on the relationship between residential built environments and commute mode choices. We use data from the Irish 2016 Census for 1,299,821 people across 3,409 localities (Electoral Divisions). Specifically, we are interested in whether specific land-use and development patterns influence the mode of travel people use when commuting.

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We tested this relationship by incorporating variables which capture various built environment characteristics, such as land-use, population densities, and transport infrastructure provision. We also capture the social circumstances of residential areas through measures like relative deprivation and property market values. The logic behind using these measures is that higher levels of deprivation signal an area underserved economically and socially, while higher property market values signal better local infrastructure quality.

Our key findings can be summarised in four key points:

Mixed-use residential areas see greater public and active transport use when commuting
People living in relatively deprived areas walk and take the bus more than people living in relatively affluent areas
People living in areas with more roads use cars more when commuting
People living in areas with more public and active transport infrastructure generally only use these modes more if the infrastructure is high quality

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These findings hold significant implications for land-use and transport policies in Ireland. Regarding land-use, our finding that mixed-use, compact residential environments directly encourage greater public and active travel provides firm support for the land-use development objectives of Project Ireland 2040 . Specifically, compact, mixed-use developments reduce the distances between residential areas and places of economic (ie jobs) and social (ie amenities) interest, thereby increasing the competitiveness and convenience attached to walking, cycling and taking the bus.

However, we also find that land-use exerts differing influences depending on socioeconomic considerations. For instance, we find that people residing in relatively deprived areas walk to work more than those residing in relatively affluent areas. This suggests that people in these areas are particularly sensitive to the accessibility of employment and rely on the availability of local active and public transport infrastructure. We interpret this to mean that the risks of encountering issues like social exclusion increase if this accessibility is absent.

From a policymaking perspective, this research illustrates the need for greater land-use developments which prioritise compactness and mixed-use from an environmental, economic, and social perspective. Land-use and transport policies are obviously complimentary. Therefore, when paired with land-use policies which prioritise compactness and mixed-use, transport policies which prioritise multi-modal transport accessibility can increase regional connectivity, thereby encouraging shifts away from car use.

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From a transport policy perspective, our finding that increases in road network provision consistently increases car use provides support for the popular mantra "if you build it, they will come". However, our results suggest that simply building more infrastructure alone is not sufficient to encourage sustained increases in public transport use and active travel.

Specifically, we argue that increases in mode-specific transport infrastructure provision may increase mode-specific use but will only do so consistently if this infrastructure is of high quality. For instance, cycle lanes may not be used if they are unsafe. Similarly, the amount of bus stops available locally may not matter to users if the service is not good. This is intuitive and relates back to our previous results by highlighting how land-use and transport policies must be coordinated around making walking, cycling, and taking the bus more competitive if we are to see long-term shifts away from excessive car-use.

These results have direct implications for policymaking frameworks such as Cork's Bus Connects, which plans to transform currently inefficient regional public and active travel services into competitive alternatives for car-use. Specifically, their focus on creating segregated bus lanes will increase the competitiveness and convenience of buses by improving the quality of the infrastructure and service, directly encouraging greater bus-use.

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The same logic applies to their intentions to incorporate active transport into these networks. Public and active transport are complimentary, in that most people must walk/cycle to bus stops, so a joint approach to infrastructure improvements is a robust approach to facilitate shifts in travel behaviours away from car-use.

Therefore, by focusing transport policies on multi-modal accessibility and pairing these with land-use policies which prioritise compactness and mixed-use, you create a rising tide which boosts the convenience and competitiveness attached to all public and active transport modes. This facilitates shifts away from car-use and improves the efficiency and sustainability of regional developments.

Conor O'Driscoll is an Economics PhD candidate in the Spatial and Regional Economic Research Centre (SRERC) at Cork University Business School at UCC. Dr Frank Crowley is a lecturer in Economics at Cork University Business School and Co-Director of the Spatial and Regional Economic Research Centre at UCC. Professor Justin Doran is a Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Spatial and Regional Economic Research Centre in the Department of Economics at Cork University Business School at UCC. He is a former Irish Research Council awardee. Dr Nóirín McCarthy is a lecturer in Economics at Cork University Business School and member of the Spatial and Regional Economic Research Centr e at UCC.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

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