The Travel Behaviours Change of the Residents of Transit Jointed Development in Taipei Metropolitan Area

Abstract

In recent years, there are plenty of researches advocating the concept of Transit Oriented Development. Among the mass transit infrastructure projects driven vigorously by the government, the most important one is the construction of MRT. In Taipei Metropolitan Area, the Transit Jointed Development (TJD) is flourishing while the construction of the MRT system is gradually completed. Up to now, there are 82 sites in Taipei MRT system, among which 35 sites have been completed and opened for lease with totally 75,577,369 square meters floor area for 6,317 households. Thus, can TJD improve the Transit Oriented Development become a very important issue. Therefore, this research selected 9 TJD sites for discovering the travel behaviours of the residents before and after they moved in the TJD housing. The research findings show that compared with the data before the residents moved in the residences of TJD, their MRT share for commuting increased from 25.92% to 57.11%, and the car share declined from 28.44% to 15.60%. The total distance reduced was 42.68km, averagely 0.1km reduction per household everyday. In terms of the commute days, the total driving days reduced 373 days, averagely 0.86 day reduction per household; and the total MRT commuting days increased 619 days, averagely 1.42 days increase per household. The totally travel time reduction is 1,133 min, averagely 2.6 min reduction per household; and the cost totally reduced NT$1349, averagely NT$3 reduction per household;. According to the results, TJD has significant positive effect on improving MRT share and reducing car usage. Besides, the results also show that TJD reduce the work commuting distance, commuting time and cost, and helps the government undertaking the Transit Oriented Development.