Urban Structure and Journey-to-work Trip Lengths

Abstract

Traffic generated from residential land uses and traffic attracted to employment zones contributes the most to person kilometers of travel. The journey-to-work travel depends on the city structure, such as population size, shape or land-use pattern (spatial distribution of residential and employment zones). The fundamental importance of the average length of commuting trips as a measure of sustainability is widely recognized by researchers. Relationship between the spatial distribution of residential and employment zones and journey-to-work trip length is investigated based on the three different spatial distribution indexes of homes and work places. These indexes are tested with data for Sapporo, Asahikawa, Hakodate, Kushiro and Murora in Hokkaido