Car use in netherlands daily urban systems: Does polycentrism result in lower commute times?

The effect on travel time of the decentralization of land use is an unresolved issue in the literature on travel behavior. Here we report our testing of the contention that commute times are lower in polycentric than in monocentric urban systems with data from the 1998 Netherlands National Travel Survey. Multilevel regression analysis indicates that the role of urban form variables in the explanation of commute times is limited in comparison with micro-level personal and household characteristics. Car commute times are shown to be higher in most poly-centric systems. In addition, car commute times tend to increase with higher residential densities and with the size of daily urban systems (DUS). The results suggest that the relocation of residences and employment in the Netherlands has not by and large led to lower commute times. One reason for this might be the strong spatial planning tradition in the Netherlands.