Travel behavior issues in the 90's: based on data from the 1990 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS) and the 1985 and 1989 American Housing Surveys (AHS)

Travel Behavior Issues in the 90's presents a preliminary examination of the most recent personal travel data relating to key questions of interest to transportation planners and policymakers. Drawing on data from the 1990 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS) and the 1985 and 1989 American Housing Surveys (AHS), it provides a selective review of changes in the amount, purpose, and mode of personal travel, as related to various demographic and geographic factors. This is a key historical moment in the relationship between the implementation of new surface transportation policy and real world travel behavior. There were significant changes in travel behavior during the past decade and there is every indication that the amount and nature of personal travel may continue to change. Many of the same social and demographic factors that were related to travel behavior change in the 1980's are still at work - the aging of the population, shrinking household size, increases in the percent of women holding driver's licenses, increases in vehicle ownership, and locational changes in where we live and work. While this report does not attempt to be an exhaustive analysis of these factors, it does provide a starting point for looking at personal travel as a reflection of the choices we have made in our social, economic, and cultural fabric.\n