Travel Behavior and the Environment

• Sustainable Community Performance Measures   
• Green Behavior - The Carbon Impact of Daily Travel
• The Carbon Footprint of Daily Travel - Article   
• Sustainable Mobility - New Findings from the NHTS   
• New Perspectives on Travel Demand  
• Biking in the US 

Long Distance Travel

• Long Distance Travel Behavior - Challenges and Opportunities
• Long Distance Travel in the US  
• Driving to Distractions: Long Distance Leisure Travel 
• Personal Travel - The Long and Short of It     

Demographics and Travel

• Summary of Travel Trends 1969-2009 
• Mode Equity - Current Findings 
• Demographics Matter  
• Age, Race, and Sex in Travel Behavior  
• Work, Automobility, and Commuting: Differences by Race and Ethnic Backgrounds  
• Does Race and Ethnicity Make a Difference in Travel Behavior?  
• Mobility in American Life  

Travel by Older Americans

• Trends in Older American's Travel
• Driving Miss Daisy: Women as Passengers  
• Working Retirement - An Update
• Aging Cars, Aging Drivers ITE Journal

Peak Travel and the Journey to Work

• Peak Travel in America
• Understanding Trip Chaining - The 'Starbuck's Effect' 
• See the Video of "The Starbucks Effect" as seen on ABC's Good Morning America.
• A Walk Through Time - Changes in the Landscape of US Commuting 
• Differences in Trip Chaining Behavior between Men and Women 

Employment Data and Commercial Travel

• Employment Data: Uses, Sources, and Challenges  
• Intermodal Truck Traffic: Description and Results of a Survey in Chicago  
• Commercial Vehicle Surveys -- Commodities or Trips  

Survey Methods and Statistics

• Trips, Chains and Tours - An Operational Definition  
• The Challenge of Surveying Hard-to-Reach Populations  
• Hang-ups, Call-backs, and Incompletes: Non-Response in Telephone Surveys  
• Are Households with Interrupted Telephone Service Like Those with No Telephone Service?  
• Exploring the Full continuum of Travel: Data Fusion by Recursive Partitioning Regression  
• A Treatise on Trip Generation  

What is Travel Behavior?

Travel behavior is the way people move in the public realm by all means of travel and for all purposes. Some of the activities people want to engage in are separated by space, which requires people to travel. The choices they make in order to travel are based on options, constraints, habits, and opportunities. For instance, how people travel to work (by car, bus, subway, or walk), the time they leave, and the duration and type of stops they make on the way, are important aspects of travel behavior.

Other topics include understanding travel by special population groups such as new immigrants and the elderly, how household location and economics influence travel, vehicle ownership and use, and many, many more topics. Recently, she completed an important Summary of Travel Trends, covering changes in American travel behavior since 1969: http://nhts.ornl.gov/2009/pub/stt.pdf

About Ms. McGuckin:

Nancy McGuckin is an independent consultant and nationally known expert in the interpretation and forecasting of travel behavior. She is best known for her ability to make meaningful analysis from complex data sources and her practical interpretation of research. She recently completed forecasts of travel by older Americans, migration and immigration patterns and trends, and forecasts of non-work travel for the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission.   

In her early career, she worked for Barton-Aschman/Parson’s Transportation Group developing travel and ridership forecasts for major investment studies, such as high speed rail systems in  Shanghai, San Juan, and Bangkok. She specializes in social and demographic indicators of travel demand, and integrates data from safety, health, economic, energy, time-use, and other pertinent sources to develop the context for planning and policy initiatives. 

Recently she has turned her focus to research related to current policy concerns, such as sustainability, equity, and livable communities. She is developing data sources for performance measures and communication tools to encourage changes in daily travel that can reduce VMT and greenhouse gas emissions. For example:

A Bicycle Built for Two: Working Together to Reduce The Carbon Impact of Daily Travel - Click link below for a representational graphic.

Graphic2 - Reducing GHG emissions--bicycle graphic.pdf