The influence of neighbourhood design on travel behaviour: Empirical evidence from North East England

This paper investigates the factors that affect travel behaviour within neighbourhoods in Tyne and Wear, North East England while accounting for differences in attitudes and perceptions. Ten different neighbourhoods have been carefully selected to characterise the two different types of traditional and suburban neighbourhood street layouts. A self-administered questionnaire has been delivered to 2200 households to capture neighbourhood design, travel patterns, travel attitudes and socio-economic characteristics. Multivariate analysis of cross-sectional data shows that some socio-economic variables as well as travel attitudes and neighbourhood design preferences can explain the differences in travel patterns between the two distinct neighbourhood designs. The results show additionally that the traditional neighbourhood group is more sensitive to factors of perception and attitudes in relation to neighbourhood design that lead to walking, cycling and public transport use travel patterns, suggesting that land-use policy designed to accommodate lower carbon-based travel together with measures to encourage active travel will have greater impact on the traditional group than the suburban group. This finding suggests that generic measures imposed by many governments, and certainly implied by current UK land-use policy, to promote sustainable mobility should be selectively targeted.