Abstract
Night commuters are integral to urban transportation systems. Essential services such as healthcare and manufacturing rely on workers who travel at night, and reliable mobility options are crucial for them. A gap exists in understanding how land use and accessibility influence public transportation use among night commuters. This study addresses this gap by using public data to explore land use and accessibility factors that affect night commuters' public transportation use in New York State. We investigated (1) the demographic characteristics of night commuters; (2) the influence of land use and accessibility on nighttime public transportation use; and (3) potential improvements to increase public transportation use and their impact. We combined data from the National Household Travel Survey with the Smart Location Database to link home locations with land use characteristics. Using logistic regression, we found that although females are generally less likely to be night commuters, they are more likely to use public transportation. Longer commute distances are associated with higher use of public transportation. Increasing job density along fixed-guideway transit routes and improving overall job accessibility via public transportation significantly enhances public transportation use among night commuters. This research provides actionable insights for public transportation agencies and urban planners to support night commuters, improving access and encouraging nighttime employment.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 104290 |
| Journal | Journal of Transport Geography |
| Volume | 127 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2025 |
Funding
This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ). One of the primary objectives of this study is to identify the characteristics of individuals likely to be night commuters and, among them, those likely to be existing public transportation users. Previous research has shown that where people live, along with their demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, can influence travel behavior (de Abreu e Silva, 2014; Rashidi et al., 2010). Many studies have used travel surveys, which typically collect daily travel information, including trip frequency, travel distance and time, mode of transportation, and trip purpose (Sun et al., 1998; Guzman et al., 2020). We used travel survey data for this study, specifically the 2017 NHTS add-on data, which include household locations and trips made by household members (Federal Highway Administration, 2017). The NHTS, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration, is a national travel survey of US households. The 2017 NHTS surveyed more than 129,000 households, 26,000 of which from a national sample and the remainder from add-on samples purchased by 13 state or Metropolitan Planning Organization partners.The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT). The opinions, findings, and conclusions in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NYSDOT.
Keywords
- Job accessibility
- Land use
- National Household Travel Survey
- Night commuters
- Public transportation
- Smart location database