UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies

This report focuses on the development of single-equation models for Subjective Mobility. It works with the premise that although the demand for travel is primarily derived from the demand to engage in spatially-separated activities, travel itself has an intrinsically positive utility that contributes to the demand for it. The affinity for travel can vary by person, mode, and purpose of travel. This report attempts to bring a better understanding of the causes and effects of that affinity for travel by studying 11 categories of key variables. It also looks toward understanding how measures such a frequency of trips, average trip distance, total distance traveled and total travel time are combined to construct subjective assessment of actual mobility. The report also focuses on identifying other factors that increase or diminish individuals' subjective assessment of their mobility. Data for this study was derived from a survey mailed to 8,000 randomly-selected households in three neighborhood of the San Francisco Bay Area.