Browsing by Subject "Melbourne"

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    How does the built environment affect transit use by train, tram and bus?
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2020) De Gruyter, Chris; Saghapour, Tayebeh; Ma, Liang; Dodson, Jago
    While much research has explored the influence of the built environment on public transport use, little focus has been given to how this influence varies by public transport mode. Using a case study of Melbourne, this study assesses the influence of the built environment and other characteristics (transit service quality, demand management and socio-demographics) on commuting by train, tram and bus. Key findings indicate that the built environment has a significant influence, but with notable differences between individual public transport modes. Commuting by tram was found to have the strongest association with the explanatory variables, while bus had the weakest explanatory power. Differences in the geographical coverage of public transport services in Melbourne play a key role in explaining the influence of the built environment. Population density is positively associated with tram use, which operates in older, higher density environments, but is negatively associated with train and bus use. Furthermore, the association with land-use mix is only significant for train and tram use, as buses tend to operate in areas with greater land-use homogeneity. When focused on inner Melbourne only, the influence of the built environment is diluted, while distance to public transport becomes more significant. The findings have important implications for practice, not only in terms of improving transit demand forecasting but also in targeting changes to the built environment to leverage higher transit ridership by mode.
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    Identifying appropriate land-use mix measures for use in a national walkability index
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2018) Mavoa, Suzanne; Eagleson, Serryn; Badland, Hannah M.; Gunn, Lucy; Boulangé, Claire; Stewart, Joshua; Giles-Corti, Billie
    Walkability indices can guide planning and policy for more sustainable and livable cities. Land-use mix is an important component of walkability that can be measured in a number of ways. Many land-use mix measures require fine-scaled land-use data that are not always available, especially when analyzing walkability across larger geographic extents. This study investigated the feasibility of calculating a national walkability index in Australia, using metropolitan Melbourne as a case study. The study focused on the dual challenges of selecting an appropriate measure of land-use mix and identifying an appropriate land-use data source. We calculated an entropy land-use mix measure with three different Australian land-use datasets. Our comparison of the resulting land-use mix measures highlighted the differences in the land-use datasets and led to our conclusion that none of the three land-use datasets was appropriate for use in a national land-use mix measure. Therefore, we also developed two new exploratory “intensity” measures of land use — daily living and local living — that were able to be calculated nationally with readily available data. Modelled associations with transport walking and comparisons with the entropy land-use mix measures indicate that these new measures were appropriate for assessing national land use in a national walkability index.