Research Project Description
EFFECTS OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIMES ON TRAVEL BEHAVIOR-PHASE 2
Project Number: 2802
Research Project:This research will study the effects of neighborhood crime on mode choice. While urban form is widely assumed to play a role in peoples decisions in their choice of modes for travel, the effects are not always empirically as strong as some would expect. Urban density has many social and psychological associations in our culture, sometimes in conflict with what we would anticipate its primary travel effects to be i.e., density increases the propensity to use transit, bicycle, or walk. In American culture, urban density is often associated with urban decay, poverty, and perhaps most importantly to ones sense of personal security. Automobiles offer relative privacy and consequently, a sense of security not offered by non-automotive modes. To the extent that the propensity to use transit is affected by ones sense of security, perceptions of neighborhood crime are likely to be an important predictive variable in determining transit and non-motorized modal share.
The proposed study builds upon a previous MTI funded study (Phase 1) conducted by the same researchers. Like this Phase 1 work, this proposed Phase 2 study would empirically estimate (through statistical modeling techniques) the impacts of neighborhood crime rates on travel behavior specifically, non-automobile mode choice. But while Phase 1 aggregated reported crime events into traffic analysis zones a geographical unit that is unrelated to crime activities the proposed Phase 2 study would improve on these methods by using geographically precise crime data (already collected in Phase 1) and travel data (address-matched trip ends obtained from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission). Crime datasets with this geographically precise location information already in our possession include San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Walnut Creek, Concord, and Santa Clara. We expect that these crime datasets will be adequate to the task of aggregating reported crimes into crime hot spots that can then be used to spatially correlate with the trip-making behaviors of participants in the Bay Area Transportation Survey 2000.
Principal Investigators:
Christopher Ferrell, Ph.D., Sr. Transportation Planner, Dowling Associates
Team Member: Shishur Mathur, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, San José State University
Institution:
Mineta Transportation Institute
Telephone Number:
(408) 924-7560
Email Address: mti@mti.sjsu.edu
Project Objective:
Estimate the effects of neighborhood crime hot spots on travel mode choice, Phase 2.
Project Abstract:
While crime is assumed by transit agency staff and researchers to have a negative effect on transit usage, it has not been studied thoroughly using statistical modeling techniques and is rarely, if ever, used in mode choice models for travel demand modeling. A number of studies have been done on the effects of urban and transit station area design on crime (Block & Davis, 1996; Liggett, Loukaitou-Sideris, & Iseki, 2001; Loukaitou-Sideris, Liggett, Iseki, & Thurlow, 2000) as well as crime on transit system facilities (Nelson 1999; Ingalls, Hartgen, Owens, 1994). For one, crime data has been difficult to gather at the neighborhood scale for city and metropolitan areas. The gradual introduction of increasingly sophisticated computer database and analytical tools to local police departments has meant that crime data is being collected and made available at the neighborhood level. The City of Oakland has made crime data available online with an interactive, web-based mapping tool. Crime data from Oakland is available with geo-locational attributes, allowing individual crime events to be mapped in urban space. While Oaklands data is unique in its detail and availability, Bay Area cities such as San Jose, San Francisco, Berkeley and Fremont all make crime data available online, often aggregated to the neighborhood or police beat level. Palo Alto is also on the forefront of this work in the Bay Area. Their GIS analysts are working to make crime data available to their officials in real time.
Recent federal government efforts to improve the spatial detail of crime data collected from local jurisdictions are also improving the prospects for routine use of crime data in transportation research and practice in the future. The Federal Bureau of Investigation standardized crime reporting with the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program in 1929; however, these statistics are aggregated to the city-level and not at a more disaggregated level that would be useful for researchers. More recently, the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) have undertaken the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) program to routinely collect, standardize, and distribute crime statistics at the incident level. As currently conceived, this dataset does not contain detailed crime location data. However, increased awareness of the potential value and importance of this data for research and planning practice may open up new opportunities to shape this ongoing effort and influence the federal government to include detailed geospatial data in the NIBRS dataset.
Milestones Dates:
Task 1: Literature Review
Task 2: Collect Supplemental Travel Data
Task 4: Model Development and Analysis
Task 5: Draft Report
Final completion Of Report:
Total Budget: $52,910 (includes $9,450 for MTI costs)
Student Involvement:Student Research Assistant TBD
Technology Transfer Activities:
Upon publication, a pdf version will be available on the Mineta Transportation Institute site. The project experience and data will be available for community meetings. Authors are encouraged to submit articles based on the research to relevant journals and to present the information to end-users at conferences.
Potential Benefits of the Project:
The project will provide researchers, policy-makers and planners with data to improve modeling techniques, smart growth, and transit-oriented development.
TRB Keywords:
Safety Factors; Travel; Travel Behavior; Travel Patterns; Travel by Mode &Travel by Area.
Primary Subject:
Neighborhood Crimes Impact on Travel Behavior
Goals:
Identify the influence of crime hot spots on trip mode choice; estimate the impacts of neighborhood crime rates on travel behavior-specifically, non-automobile mode choice.
Enabling Research:
Behaviorial analysis; statistical analysis
Modal Orientation:
Public transportation
