University of California Transportation Center

Traveler behavior plays a role in the effectiveness of travel demand management (TDM) policies. Personal travel management is explored in this paper by analyzing individuals’ adoption and consideration of 17 travel-related alternatives in relation to socio-demographic, mobility, travel-related attitude, personality and lifestyle preference variables. The sample comprises 1282 commuters living in urban and suburban neighborhoods of the San Francisco Bay Area. Among the findings: females were more likely to have adopted/considered the more ‘costly’ strategies; those with higher mobility were more likely to have adopted/considered travel-maintaining as well as travel-reducing strategies; and those who like travel and want to do more are less likely to consider travel-reducing strategies. These findings, when combined with those of earlier work on this subject, present a compelling argument for the need to further understand traveler behavior -- particularly in response to congestion and TDM policies.