Car Use: A Matter of Dependency or Choice?

Cogitatio Press has published an article of Paul van de Coevering, Professor Urban Mobility Planning and Hossein Dashtestaninejad, lecturer and researcher at the Built Environment domain in their special issue: Car Dependency and Urban Form. 

Car use in the sprawled urban region of Noord‐Brabant is above the Dutch average. Does this reflect car dependency due to the lack of competitive alternative modes? Or are there other factors at play, such as differences in preferences? The article aims to determine the nature of car use in the region and explore to what extent this reflects car dependency.

The data, comprising 3,244 respondents was derived from two online questionnaires among employees from the High‐Tech Campus (2018) and the TU/e‐campus (2019) in Eindhoven. Travel times to work by car, public transport, cycling, and walking were calculated based on the respondents’ residential location.

Indicators for car dependency were developed using thresholds for maximum commuting times by bicycle and maximum travel time ratios between public transport and car. Based on these thresholds, approximately 40% of the respondents were categorised as car‐dependent. Of the non‐car‐dependent respondents, 31% use the car for commuting.

A binomial logit model revealed that higher residential densities and closer proximity to a railway station reduce the odds of car commuting. Travel time ratios also have a significant influence on the expected directions. Mode choice preferences (e.g., comfort, flexibility, etc.) also have a significant, and strong, impact.

These results highlight the importance of combining hard (e.g., improvements in infrastructure or public transport provision) and soft (information and persuasion) measures to reduce car use and car dependency in commuting trips.