Household Income, Travel Behavior, Location, and Accessibility

Abstract

This paper analyzes the differences in travel behavior and location characteristics across different income groups in two cities in different parts of the world: Chile and China. Vehicle ownership rates, mode choices, trip rates and purposes, and travel times and distances are compared according to high-, middle-, and low-income terciles in Chengdu, China, and Santiago, Chile, with the use of recent household travel surveys. Household location characteristics are also compared, and different measures of accessibility are presented. Results suggest commonalities and differences and build a foundation on which future analytical models can be developed and more rigorous and comparable accessibility measures might be derived.