2011 Volume 66 Issue 1 Pages 20-37
Existing geographical literature has focused little attention on the relation between people's daily travel and the transportation environments of their local communities. Consequently, there has not been much discussion on how transportation environments might be better conceived and laid out based on observed travel patterns of people in their community. This paper starts to address this omission using the method of personal trip survey to highlight how peoples' daily travel is affected by the transportation environment. Based on the results of the survey, the paper examines how a better transportation system might be laid out in Showa district of Kure City in Hiroshima Prefecture. For this study, questionnaires were distributed in three housing estates in Showa district: Daisan-danchi, Matsugaoka, and Yumegaoka. These three estates are all quite different in terms of when they were built, access to public transportation, and other factors. A total of 300 questionnaires were distributed on October 4 and 5, 2009, and 112 were returned, for a response rate of 37.3%. A preliminary survey of the transportation facilities available in Showa district revealed significant differences in access and convenience depending on where one lives in the district. The mode of transportation used for commuting was found to vary depending on the location of the neighborhood within the district, surrounding traffic conditions, and the age of the commuters. In contrast, private cars were considered very advantageous for trips to the hospital or for shopping, and were widely used even for relatively short trips within the district. Examining daily travel patterns more closely, it was observed that women tend to make more multipurpose trips; that is, they try to visit more than one place or accomplish more than one task while they are out. This pattern was especially evident when they were out shopping in their own cars. The same pattern of multipurpose trips or multiple trips was not observed for travel based on public transportation, which of course is much more restrictive than having your own vehicle. The study identifies a number of problems with current transportation patterns: (a) there did not seem to be a direct correlation between convenience of the bus routes and the mode of transportation used by local residents, and (b) public transport seemed unable to flexibly accommodate increased ranges of travel or changes in demand for different destinations. This suggests that public transportation might be improved by flexibly accommodating major differences in travel patterns such as between commuting on the one hand and traveling to shopping or medical facilities on the other hand.
