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Impacts of built environment on travel behaviors of Generation Z: a longitudinal perspective

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Abstract

Having grown up in an "always-on" technological environment, Generation Z differ significantly in attitudes and lifestyles compared to previous generations. However, their travel behaviors have not been widely discussed and adequately understood. Using data from the latest three National Household Travel Surveys in the United States, we in this paper identify the uniqueness of Gen Z in travel behaviors and preferences, and use the zero-inflated Poisson model to test the impacts of key factors on the mode choices. Results from the longitudinal analysis indicated that Gen Z are not always more environmentally friendly than same-age people in the past decades, while Gen Z have a stronger tendency to travel in a green way in response to changes in built environment than their counterparts decades ago. These findings demonstrate that Gen Z, who have been greatly affected by technological advances and social media, may show unprecedented potential to support sustainable transportation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are very thankful for the data provided by the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS). NHTS was conducted by the Federal Highway Administration. The views presented are in this paper are those of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and accuracy of information.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering, Ministry of Education, Tongji University, 4800 Cao’an Road, Shanghai, 201804, China

    Xiaohong Chen, Tianhao Li & Quan Yuan

  2. Urban Mobility Institute, Tongji University, Shanghai, 201804, China

    Quan Yuan

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  1. Xiaohong Chen
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  2. Tianhao Li
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  3. Quan Yuan
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Contributions

XC: Conceptualization, supervision, and reviewing; TL: data curation, writing-original draft preparation, and software; QY: investigation, conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Quan Yuan.

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Table 5 Fixed effects regression model for walking for the “same age” part
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Chen, X., Li, T. & Yuan, Q. Impacts of built environment on travel behaviors of Generation Z: a longitudinal perspective. Transportation 50, 407–436 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-021-10249-6

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