Doctoral Dissertation Research: Role of Transportation in Employment Outcomes of the Disadvantaged

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

Affordable and efficient transportation is crucial for the employment of low-income individuals, as they have fewer resources to spend on mobility. To help improve employment outcomes of the disadvantaged, planners and policy makers have emphasized the significance of transportation and suggested expanding public transit services or providing automobiles at lower cost. To justify such policy efforts, numerous researchers have studied the impact of transportation on labor market outcomes of the disadvantaged. The studies have focused on a key element -- whether or not disadvantaged individuals have adequate "accessibility" to reach job opportunities. Thus, there is a fundamental assumption that accessibility and employment are directly connected to each other. That is, the past research is built upon the idea that low-income individuals with reliable access to a transport option or higher accessibility to job opportunities by car or public transit will choose a particular transport mode for work-related travels. Despite this seemingly logical assumption, accessibility alone does not warrant an individual's choice of a certain travel mode. By systematically considering travel mode choice decisions of low-income individuals, the objective of this dissertation is to shed new light on the current understanding of the relationship between accessibility and employment of the economically disadvantaged. In particular, this project asks two research questions. First, what are the factors determining travel mode choices of low-income individuals? Second, after systematically considering travel mode choices, does accessibility to jobs still have a direct and independent impact on improving employment outcomes of the deprived? This research, using household travel survey data collected in the San Francisco and Atlanta regions, addresses the above questions by conducting a series of statistical analyses to estimate employment outcomes of the poor as a function of accessibility and travel mode choices. The investigators expect to demonstrate the significance of mode choice decisions in examining the impact of accessibility on the employment outcomes of low-income individuals. This dissertation is important in two respects. First, few research studies have systematically integrated travel mode choices of the poor in studying how accessibility affects employment; little consideration has been given to the idea that a high level of job accessibility provided by a transport means does not guarantee that individuals will choose the particular travel mode. Thus, what is missing in the literature is how accessibility affects travel mode choices for poor individuals, and how travel mode decisions subsequently influence employment. The proposed study will fill this gap in the literature. Second, the findings from this research will offer guidance for future transportation policy. Current transportation policies for the poor tend to focus on improving accessibility by providing cars or expanding transit services. However, if this study finds that there are factors specific to each individual that restrict their travel mode choices, and if mode choices indeed have significant impact on employment, this research can inform policy makers about the sources of such constraints that limit the value of accessibility. The public sector can then design policy instruments that are specifically aimed at removing such constraints, thus ensuring higher social returns from present accessibility-enhancing strategies.