The relationship between urban street networks and private motorized trips at the city level

ABSTRACT

There are factors that impact car usage in urban areas, such as density, diversity and design, but there have been few studies that examine the relationship between street network factors and car usage at the city level (macro level). This paper focuses on this relationship by introducing urban street network variables, such as blocks per area, nodes per block and length of roads and motorways, as independent variables and the percentage of daily trips by private motorized modes as the dependent variable. The street network in this study includes interconnecting lines and points that present streets, roads, motorways, intersections and blocks. The strength of the relationship in this study is found using multiple linear regression. The findings of this research indicate that an increase in car usage is correlated with an increasing number of blocks per area, number of nodes per block and length of motorways. In addition, because the urban street network is the result of macro-scale planning decisions, considering this relationship can lead to better planning decisions.

KEYWORDS:

• Street network indicators
• private car usage
• sustainable urban transport planning
• street pattern
• multiple linear regression

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank those who have supported this research for their useful comments. In particular, we would like to acknowledge the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Research Management Centre (RMC) and Centre for Innovative Planning and Development (CIPD).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The funding for this project was made possible through a research grant from the Ministry of Education, Malaysia under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) 2015 [FRGS grant number R.J130000.7821.4F739].