Household vehicle ownership: does urban structure matter?

The central point of this paper is whether there is a significant association between the macroscale attributes of the urban area where a householder has chosen to live and the number of vehicles owned by the household. A little systematic effort, in fact, has been made to treat vehicle ownership within a broader framework of household choice regarding housing location, workplace, and travel patterns. Therefore, it is still unclear how land uses patterns impact upon the level of vehicle ownership although a few studies tried to explain the relationship. The hypothesis, taken from New Urbanism ideas, is that areas with higher density, better access to public services and more opportunity to non-motorized modes of travel are associated with lower auto-dependency and lower rates of vehicle ownership. In this study, metropolitan Adelaide, in South Australia is considered as a case study because it is an example of car-dependent areas. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E213716.