Occupational status and the journey-to-work: Fid-Bau Portal

Occupational status and the journey-to-work

Cubukgil, Adil / Miller, Eric J.

Abstract The importance of occupational status as an explanatory variable in the determination of work trip commuting flows has not been well studied in the literature. This paper addresses this issue by means of an empirical investigation of commuting patterns in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), using 1971 Census data. The analysis consists of three parts. First, a descriptive analysis of the work trip characteristics for six relatively homogeneous occupation groups is performed. Second, the employment and residential location distributions for these groups are briefly examined. Third, a series of work trip distribution models are calibrated and compared for each of the six occupation groups. The results of these analyses indicate clear and consistent differences in work trip commuting patterns among the six occupation groups studied. Although data limitations prevented a conclusive determination of the extent to which income plays a role in explaining these differences, evidence is presented to indicate that occupational differences, over and above income-related effects, do exist in commuting propensities and residential location preferences, and hence inclusion of occupational variables in future analyses and models of work trip making may well contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon. The work reported in this paper was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Communications. The opinions expressed herein, however, are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Ministry.