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Alternative and adaptive transportation: What household factors support recovery from a drastic increase in gas price?
Bronson, R. & Marshall, W.
Abstract
Transportation resiliency is the ability for a
transportation system to maintain or return to a previous
level of service after a disruptive event. Among many
methods to assess resiliency, quality and quantity of mode
choice have shown to be promising. The provision of
multiple transportation options helps facilitate resiliency by
relieving the transportation system stress that tends to
occur in many situations when only one modal option is
available. This research seeks to understand how the
availability of environmentally friendly transportation
modal options—bicycling, walking, and transit—contribute
to resiliency as caused by an abrupt doubling of gas
price. By creating a multinomial logistic regression mode
choice model for Denver, Colorado, we are able to measure
the resiliency value of various multimodal transportation
infrastructures, even if few people are using those facilities
today. Results of this study suggest three paths to resiliency:
higher income, proximity to downtown, and the
availability of transportation options. There is a cumulative
effect in these results as well; for instance, low-income,
suburban areas tend to spend more of their household
budget on transportation than urban, higher-income areas,
thus increasing their vulnerability. Through this analysis,
we also investigate how this resiliency scenario affects
geographically and demographically diverse areas in
Denver, as well as how investments in more environmentally
sustainable modes of transportation can support more
resilient communities.
Keywords
Transportation resiliency; Bicycling; Walking; Transit; Multimodal transportation; Mode choice
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