Built environment, income and travel behavior: Change in the city of Chengdu, China 2005–2016

Abstract

In this paper, we look at differences in travel behavior and location characteristics across income in Chengdu, China at two points of time, 2005 and 2016, using household travel surveys. Specifically, we compare changes over time for different income groups for Chengdu in 2005 and 2016. We find that walking or biking remains the most common mode for all income groups but higher-income households appear to have more choices depending on the proximity of their neighborhood to downtown. We also find that both average local and average regional access have worsened since 2005. Furthermore, it appears that there is less economic diversity within neighborhoods in 2016 when compared to 2005, with more locations appearing to have 40% or more of low-, middle-, or high-income households than in the past. Finally, we find that low-income households and older trip makers are more likely to walk or bike and that high-income households are the most likely to own cars and use motorized modes. Built environment characteristics like mixed land use appear to significantly reduce travel time in 2016 but do not result in higher non-motorized transport mode share. We contribute to existing literature by evaluating changes in the relationship of built environment and travel behavior during a period of rapid urbanization and economic growth in a Chinese city.

Keywords:

• Access
• built environment
• China
• travel behavior

Acknowledgments

The Chengdu surveys were conducted by the Harvard-China Project on Energy Economy and Environment of the Harvard John A. Paulson School for Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, and the Research Center for Contemporary China (RCCC) of Peking University. The authors thank Mingming Shen, Jie Yan, and other collaborators at RCCC for leading the field implementation of both surveys.

Additional information

Funding

Generous funding was provided to the Harvard-China Project from the Harvard Global Institute for the 2016 household survey, under an award on the theme of “China 2030/2050: Energy and Environmental Challenges for the Future,” and from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, Volvo Educational and Research Foundations, Luce Foundation, and Harvard University Asia Center for the 2005 household survey.