Spatial Autocorrelation Analyses of the Commuting Preferences by Bus in the Sydney Metropolitan Region

• Main Author: Putu Alit Suthanaya
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institut Teknologi Bandung 2011-04-01
• Series: Jurnal Teknik Sipil
• Subjects: commuting preferences; bus; spatial association
• Online Access: http://journals.itb.ac.id/index.php/jts/article/view/2787/1386
• ISSN: 0853-2982; 2549-2659

Decreasing public transport use and increasing car dependence have been experienced in many cities in the world. The environmental impact caused by this trend is alarming. In order to achieve sustainable city, one of the targets is to increase the use of public transport and reduce VKT (Vehicle Kilometer Traveled). It is therefore important to study the commuting behavior of residents. Using Journey-to-Work (JTW) Census data for Sydney region (Australia), this paper focused on analysis of commuting preferences by bus. Two techniques were applied to study commuting behavior by bus, i.e. preference functions and Moran’s I spatial statistic. Preference function was used to measure resident’s commuting behavior by bus whilst Moran’s I spatial statistic was applied to study the spatial association or interaction amongst zones and to test their statistical significance. The results showed that the commuting behavior of the workers was not stable spatially. This indicates that the use of one global parameter to estimate future travel is not appropriate. The change in the commuting preferences by bus toward distance maximization has led to the increase of travel distance and VKT. Spatial statistic showed that the interaction was positive for journey-to-work by bus.