Nancy McGuckin

The National Personal Travel survey has been conducted periodically by the U.S. Department of Transportation since 1969. In this feature, trends and data from the most recent survey in 2001 and the entire data series are used to highlight important patterns of travel and vehicle use in American households. Language: en

Understanding peak period travel is vital for transportation finance initiatives, congestion mitigation, and air quality policies among other important policy and planning programs. Historically, the peak period was considered the domain of work travel. Commuting is still predominantly a weekday activity, tied to the morning and evening hours, and has traditionally defined peak travel demand. Over the last four decades the number of work trips grew as the population of workers grew. But by the early 80’s the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) showed that the number of non-work trips were growing faster than work trips. By the early 90’s the concept of trip chaining during a work tour was commonly used to allow more complex commutes to be recognized as work travel by including stops for incidental purposes during the commute. Even beyond the growth in trip chaining, non-work travel continues to grow faster than work travel, and it is growing during the peak periods. As the autho...

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The Baby Boom Generation has propelled much of the growth in travel over the past 40 years—both in the number of travelers and in the amount that each person travels. The tremendous growth in vehicle travel generated spatial, cultural, and economic conditions that are still being felt today. This publication presents one viewpoint on the impact of baby boomers on U.S. travel, as described through four decades of travel data. It also provides recommendations on private and public investments necessary to make sure that aging baby boomers continue to experience optimum mobility in the future.

Men and women’s commuting behavior continues to be distinctly different. The difference may be most apparent in the tendency to trip chain—that is to link short stops into the trip to or from work. As more women entered the workforce, and went from higher education to professional careers, it was widely assumed that women and men’s travel behavior would converge. However, research has found persistent gender differences in distance to work, mode of travel and auto occupancy, and the propensity to trip chain. This paper examines whether trends in trip chaining behavior show convergence or the continued persistence of gender differences. Trends show that trip chaining during the commute increased between 1995 and 2001, and men’s trip chaining increased nearly twice as much as women’s. The growth in men’s trip chaining is robust, but a large amount of that growth is for stops to get a meal or coffee on the way to work. We call this the “Starbucks” effect. Understanding trends in the in...

In this research, data from the Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS) is used to examine how people commute to work, specifically workers of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. The major groups are identified by the racial/ethnic origin of the head of the household in the NPTS, and include non-Hispanic African-Americans, non-Hispanic Whites and Asians as racial categories and Hispanics, who can be of any race.

California officials aim to improve the safety of non-motorized travel in California. In order to estimate the exposure of bicycles and pedestrians to crashes, the State of California purchased an add-on to the 2009 National Household Travel Survey (called the CA-NHTS in this report). Exposure rates are calculated for pedestrians and bicyclists in the state as a whole, for each California Department of Transportation District, and for each Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO). In addition, a few relevant areas of analysis are used to detail important aspects of walking and biking behavior in the state. While not an exhaustive presentation of CA-NHTS data, the report is an overview of the data collected on walking and biking as presented and provides control totals, margins of error, and other statistics useful for researchers and analysts interested in using the CA-NHTS.

The 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) provides data to characterize daily personal travel patterns across the country. The survey includes demographic data on households, vehicles, people, and detailed information on daily travel by all modes of transportation. NHTS survey data is collected from a sample of households and expanded to provide national estimates of trips and miles of travel by travel mode, trip purpose, and other household attributes. When combined with historical data from the 1969, 1977, 1983,1990, and 1995 NPTS and the 2001 NHTS, the 2009 NHTS serves as a rich source of detailed travel data over time for users. This document highlights travel trends and commuting patterns in eight key areas - summary of travel and demographics, household travel, person travel, private vehicle travel, vehicle availability and usage, commute travel patterns, temporal distribution, and special populations.

Introduction This paper is part of a series of briefing papers to be prepared for the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission authorized in Section 1909 of SAFETEA-LU. The papers are intended to synthesize the state-of-the-practice consensus on the issues that are relevant to the Commission's charge outlined in Section 1909, and will serve as background material in developing the analyses to be presented in the final report of the Commission. The past 50 years have seen an unprecedented growth in travel due to several factors, one of which is demographic change. There are myriad unforeseeable influences that will shape the future of transportation planning and there are strong indications that the key factors (such as vehicle ownership) that have had a direct relationship on travel demand in the past may be less influential in the future. This paper uses current travel behavior to examine future potential travel demand based on demographic change alon...

Introduction This paper is part of a series of briefing papers to be prepared for the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission authorized in Section 1909 of SAFETEA-LU. The papers are intended to synthesize the state-of-the-practice consensus on the issues that are relevant to the Commission's charge outlined in Section 1909, and will serve as background material in developing the analyses to be presented in the final report of the Commission. The past 50 years has seen an unprecedented growth in travel due to several factors, one of which is demographic change. There are a myriad of unforeseeable influences that will shape the future of transportation planning and there are strong indications that the key factors (such as vehicle ownership) that have had a direct relationship on travel demand in the past may be less influential in the future. This paper uses current travel behavior to examine future potential travel demand based on demographic change ...

Introduction This paper is part of a series of briefing papers to be prepared for the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission authorized in Section 1909 of SAFETEA-LU. The papers are intended to synthesize the state-of-the-practice consensus on the issues that are relevant to the Commission's charge outlined in Section 1909, and will serve as background material in developing the analyses to be presented in the final report of the Commission. The coming population surge of older Americans has important future mobility and safety implications. This paper provides projections of the aging population, forecasts of older drivers, and vehicle miles of travel (VMT). Based on population projections from the Census and current driving behavior data from the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), both the number of older drivers and the vehicle miles of travel will more than double by 2050. The aging of the population contributes to greater exposure of older...

Bicycles, scooters, Segways, skateboards, and more are placing new demands on urban streets in big cities. These modes, termed ”little vehicles” (LVs) here, share common characteristics. This research leverages the 2017 National Household Travel Survey to understand and benchmark key characteristics for current users and trip characteristics of LVs. Our findings show that young men are the predominant users of these modes for a wide range of purposes, including recreational and social activities, shopping and errands, and work travel. In the biggest metro areas in the United States, three-quarters of the trips by LVs are less than 4 km (2.5 mi), and half are shorter than 2 km (1.2 mi) (median)—a distance band that is often considered too far to walk, but shorter than most trips currently taken by car.

This paper uses data from the 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey and the 2001 National Household Travel Survey to examine trip-chaining trends in the United States. The research focuses on trip chaining related to the work trip and contrasts travel characteristics of workers who trip chain with those who do not, including their distance from work, current levels of trip making, and the purposes of stops made within chains. Trends examined include changes in the purpose of stops and in trip-chaining behavior by gender and life cycle. A robust growth in trip chaining occurred between 1995 and 2001, nearly all in the direction of home to work. Men increased their trip chaining more than women, and a large part of the increase was to stop for coffee (the Starbucks effect). It was found that workers who trip chain live farther from their workplaces than workers who do not. It was also found that, in two-parent, two-worker households that drop off children at school, women are...

... Mattias Gripsrud, Norway; Nancy McGuckin, United States of America; Sharon O'Connor, United States of America; Martine Quaglia, France; Benoıt Riandey, France; Karl Sieber, United States; Anu Siren, Denmark; Juliane Stark, Austria; and Coralie Triadou, United Kingdom. ...

Introduction This paper is part of a series of briefing papers to be prepared for the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission authorized in Section 1909 of SAFETEA-LU. The papers are intended to synthesize the state-of-the-practice consensus on the issues that are relevant to the Commission's charge outlined in Section 1909, and will serve as background material in developing the analyses to be presented in the final report of the Commission. Travel for non-work purposes, including shopping, errands, and social and recreational activities, is growing and can be expected to grow faster than work travel in the next five decades. If current trends in travel continue unabated, non-work travel is expected to grow 70 percent by 2050, compared to 39 percent for work travel. Reversing a historic trend, travel speeds have started to slow down. Non-work travel and work travel overlap, even during the peak weekday periods, increasing congestion. Currently, half ...

DESCRIPTION Short article/brief describing the demographics and travel characteristics of multi-generational households. The findings show that caretakers of elderly parents are more likely women who offer critical transport--especially to medical services-- as part of their care-taking responsibilities.

This paper presents the results of an effort funded by the FHWA Office of Policy to conduct analyses for creating tour-based files for the 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS) and the 2001 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS). This research examines the effect of different rules of inclusion for person-trips within chains and advances an operational definition of a trip chain as containing stops for any purpose with no more than 30 minutes dwell time. We describe the process of establishing tours based on this definition, including the number and percent of trips included by tour type, the number and percent of tours established, and a closer look at the tours for journey-to-work. We look at the differences in estimates of commute trips and miles using person-trips and tour-level analysis using the tour-level files for 1995 and 2001. These files and a more detailed description are available for researchers from the FHWA.

DESCRIPTION Two different approaches are used to collect trip generation data that form the basis of both site analysis--for example, ITE trip generation rates--and longer term forecasting--for example, future land-use productions and attractions. This paper tries to clearly describe the theory and assess the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. In addition, I've added some detailed discussion of auto occupancy factors that might be helpful in assigning auto trips from person-trips generated in the model.

Gender and household life cycle together affect daily travel behavior. Although this makes intuitive sense, transportation planners and policy makers have done little to understand what effect and impact these factors have on daily transportation choices. The 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey was used to examine trip-chaining behavior of adult men and women traveling Monday through Friday. The data show that women continue to make more trips to perform household-sustaining activities such as shopping and family errands to a greater extent than men. Women, especially with children in the household, are more likely to chain these household-sustaining trips to the trip to and from work. Women’s participation in the labor force is at an all-time high, but women’s patterns in travel to work are different from men’s patterns, and they vary with family and life-cycle status. The type and location of jobs that women take are likely affected by their greater household and family...

... Because of longevity, driving confidence, and medical problems, the number of women who cease driving is far larger than the number of men. ... McGuckin, Nancy. Contrino, Heather. Federal Highway Administration. Nakamoto, Hikari (Yuki). Santos, Adella. Cambridge Systematics ...

Inter-city travel is a unique and under-studied market. Timely and reliable information about how much people travel and by what means is required in corridors where policy makers must increase capacity and balance investments between modes of travel.  In addition, information to compare areas is needed to make judgments about capital investment priorities for inter-city travel across the US.  Unfortunately, basic information to assess this travel market is lacking—the last comprehensive data collection in the US was 20 years ago.

The world has changed since 1995, and many of those changes could impact long-distance trip-making in predictable ways and in ways we can’t imagine. Increases in long-distance travel demand will inevitably be linked with advances in telecommunications and social networking. For example, on-line activities allow the development of social networks without regards to geography.  This brief concludes with some thoughts touching on these changes. 

With those caveats, there are still strong and important relationships between trip purpose, means of transport, and travel party size and type that can be understood from the American Travel Survey.

The National Personal Travel Survey (NPTS/NHTS data Series) has been conducted periodically by USDOT since 1969. In this article, trends and data the most recent survey in 2001 and the entire data series are used to highlight important patterns of travel and vehicle use in American households. The data indicates tremendous growth in the number and percent of households with more vehicles than drivers, and the availability of extra vehicles is shown to add miles to the average household's travel. In addition, Americans are keeping their cars longer, and as a result the vehicle fleet is aging. As all Americans have increased mobility, older people are continuing to drive well into their 70s and 80s. However, older drivers are more likely to be driving older cars than younger age groups, especially older men. Older drivers are at a greater risk of being involved in a fatal accident per mile driven than other age group. As we move into the future, transportation planners and policy makers will be increasingly challenged to anticipate and meet the goals of a safe and efficient transportation system.

A mobile society is an open society, where seamless access to diverse economic, social, and cultural marketplaces fosters the opportunities, competition, and choices that fuel the economy and enrich the daily lives of millions.  Transportation investment choices contribute to such an open society by increasing access to new activity centers, reducing bottlenecks in existing facilities, and extending mobility to the least advantaged members of society.

By most measures, the United States is the most mobile nation, accommodating over 4 trillion miles of passenger travel and 3.7 trillion ton-miles of freight in the late 1990s.  A vast system of transportation infrastructure makes this possible: 4 million miles of road, 580,000 bridges, 350 commercial ports, 5,500 airports.  Every day, the U.S. maintains, patrols, and moves goods the length of enough commercially navigable waterways, 25,000 miles if stretched end-to-end, to span the globe. 

The United States transportation systems are constantly in flux, adapting to the changing frontiers of the U.S. economy.  Once principally geographic and geological, the frontiers of transportation have become increasingly technological, operational, economic, and geo-political. Exhibit 1-1 illustrates some of the many forces that impact US travel patterns. 

However, evidence has accumulated that not all segments of U.S. society share in the high quality mobility that most Americans have come to expect.  Significant barriers to mobility persist for people with disabilities, elderly people, low-income households, recent immigrants and people of color.  The system for distributing goods and services fails to reach into some places where millions of Americans live and work.  Without a concentrated effort to address the mobility problems of these groups, and their access to goods and services, the participation and success of these groups in the larger economy will continue to be limited.

As an introduction to the topic, the focus of this paper is to raise the profile of unmet transportation needs in the midst of transportation “plenty.”  The superlative qualities of the U.S. surface transportation system is well-documented, but it is helpful to keep in mind the groups that have perennially found themselves left behind.

Non-drivers are a growing segment of the older population.  This creates a fundamental mobility challenge for larger and larger numbers of older Americans in the U.S. and is a looming policy and planning challenge.  For people who no longer drive, basic required travel--to the store, the doctor’s office, or to visit friends and family--is difficult.  The vast majority of older non-drivers are women. While women are 60 percent of the population 65 years and older, they are 75 percent of the non-drivers. For every decade after the age of 65, the percent of men and women who are non-drivers doubles—but women are twice as likely to be non-drivers as men of the same age.  This study focuses on older non-driving women and examines their living arrangements and their travel as passengers in vehicles.

Women of all ages are more likely to sit in the passenger seat than men. This research found that eight out of ten times when a couple of any age travels together by car, the man drives.  So while older women drive about 60 percent of men’s miles, they travel 85 percent as many miles in vehicles as do men—more often as passengers.  ‘Letting’ men drive in younger years could impact the confidence women feel in driving as they age, and lead them to give up driving early, or leave them unprepared for assuming driving responsibilities when their husbands can no longer drive.

Because of longevity, driving confidence, and medical problems, the number of women who cease driving is far larger than the number of men. As they age, more than twice as many women cease driving as men—and the impact on their mobility is severe.  Many households with non-driving women are located in suburban and rural areas, far from transit and other options.

About half of non-driving women ages 65 and older do not travel at all, by any means, on a random day.  Importantly, about half of these women have not travelled in the previous week and say that they would like to get out more.  This is the first national measure of unmet mobility needs that begs for further exploration.

Finally, we find that non-driving women are heavily dependent on family and friends for rides, especially women who live alone or with another non-driver. This research shows that when an older woman non-driver is a passenger on a vehicle trip, three out of ten times she is travelling with non-household members. 

A combination of factors, including suburbanization, extended longevity, and the increase in older women who live alone, will challenge communities to provide safe mobility for people who can no longer drive. Policy and planning suggestions for meeting the challenge of safe mobility for older women include: plan for non-drivers as part of the built environment; encourage volunteers to provide transport to non-driving elders; expand taxi voucher systems to help provide door to door service; provide special demand-response 24-hour senior shuttles in suburban communities; and extend driving years through in-vehicle and ITS technology.

The commute trip bears an importance to transportation planning far beyond simply its share of total travel.  Commuting is regular in its frequency, time of departure and destination—and, for most communities, it is highly concentrated in time and space (some call this congestion). Commuting is still predominantly a weekday activity, tied to the morning and evening hours, and has historically defined peak travel demand, and in turn influenced the design of the transportation infrastructure.  Work trips are also critical to transit planning, and help determine the corridors served and the levels of transit service available.

The characteristics of the commute for most Americans depend on the demographic characteristics of the worker, the supply and location of jobs and housing, and the availability, cost and convenience of various modes of commuting. The work trip is often the longest trip of the day, and the environs of the workplace provide a sphere of activity that anchors much of our travel, either in stops we make between home and work or in trips we make around work.  The increasing time spent in travel to and from work influences the mode of travel and the propensity to make non-work related trips in the remaining time after working and commuting.

The commute trip is so important in understanding people’s daily travel that information about the commute has been included in the U.S. decennial Census (in the long form) since 1960. This rich source of data over 40 years has been invaluable in understanding trends that impact commuting, such as:
 Growth of the single-person household and the advent of working women
 Sprawl of residence and workplaces in suburban areas
 Explosion of vehicle ownership
 Drastic increase in private vehicle use
 Significant increases in commute times in all large metro areas.

Going forward, as the Census long form transitions into the American Community Survey, transportation planners hope to continue to be able to use the data at very small geography, but far more importantly, given the recent trends in overall travel patterns, they are wondering if focusing exclusively on work travel will be sufficient to plan for future travel in America. This paper uses the long form data provided by the decennial Census in conjunction with the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data to look at the trends pertaining to the journey to work, and to try to address some key issues.