Quantifying the effects of childhood and previous residential experiences on the use of public transport

Public transport (PT) is at the heart of sustainable transport policies, particularly for urban areas. Planning for PT requires a detailed understanding of individual travel behaviour – not only on aggregate but also at the individual level. This goes together with urban planning policies of increasing density, diversity or land use mixing, proximity and better accessibility. After all, numerous studies have indicated that the built environment of people's residential neighbourhood has an important impact on their travel behaviour (for a review, see, e.g., Ewing and Cervero, 2001, 2010; Leck, 2006; Saelens and Handy, 2008).
The motivation underpinning this paper is to look quantitatively at
how current public transport use is influenced by not only the built environment, but also by how it is perceived. More precisely, the paper examines how perceptions of the current residential neighbourhood are shaped by earlier residential experiences during childhood and at the previous place of residence, and eventually how these experiences also impact on current travel attitudes and current PT use (...)