Impact of Improved Accessibility on Shopping Activity: Person-Based Measure

Abstract

Accessibility has long been considered as an important factor that influences activity generation, especially nonwork activities. However, the conclusions on whether greater accessibility leads to more travel have been mixed. One reason for the conflicting results is that individual heterogeneity is not taken into account in the previous location-based accessibility measures. This paper fills this gap by operationalizing a person-based space-time accessibility (STA) measure based on the individual’s spatial-temporal constraints. A discrete-continuous model of shopping activity participation and duration is developed incorporating this STA measure in order to investigate the influences of accessibility on activity generation. Using data from a global positioning system (GPS)–based activity travel survey from the Shangdi area of Beijing, China, this paper confirms that accessibility remains a significant positive effect on shopping activity generation. This implies that an individual’s spatial-temporal constraints should be taken into consideration to explore the effect of land use on travel behavior.