As we are now going through the hottest summer on record and many urban areas are experiencing multiple days of greater than 100 or even 110 degree heat, I've started to wonder how these conditions are impacting travel. Are people making fewer overall trips? Are they changing when they travel? Are they changing their mode of travel, particularly their walking and biking habits? How will or should these extreme conditions impact our future planning in urban areas?
Is anyone studying this in places like Dallas, Houston, or other southern and western cities? It would be interesting to see.
Thanks
Jim Bunch
Good question! Take a look at countries where these temperatures are the
norm (UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi and so forth). More private air conditioned
cars and more deaths from heat exhaustion for poor immigrants.
Can the US afford this?
Konstadinos (Kostas) G. Goulias
Distinguished Professor
University of California Santa Barbara
www.kostasgoulias.com
geotrans.geog.ucsb.edu
On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:00 PM jabunch wrote:
> As we are now going through the hottest summer on record and many urban
> areas are experiencing multiple days of greater than 100 or even 110 degree
> heat, I've started to wonder how these conditions are impacting travel.
> Are people making fewer overall trips? Are they changing when they
> travel? Are they changing their mode of travel, particularly their walking
> and biking habits? How will or should these extreme conditions impact our
> future planning in urban areas?
>
> Is anyone studying this in places like Dallas, Houston, or other southern
> and western cities? It would be interesting to see.
>
> Thanks
>
> Jim Bunch
> --
> Full post:
> https://tmip.org/content/impact-extreme-heat-and-other-weather-travel-tr...
> Manage my subscriptions: https://tmip.org/mailinglist
> Stop emails for this post: https://tmip.org/mailinglist/unsubscribe/14028
>
Hi Jim,
Thank you so much for raising this issue regarding whether people change their mobility patterns in response to extremely hot weather conditions, and if they do, how their mobility choices differ. We have delved into these issues in one of our recent papers, which is currently under review. We integrated the American Time Use Survey data with the NOAA weather data and investigated various aspects of travel on extremely hot days compared to regular hot days in a dozen metropolitan areas across the United States, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, New York, Chicago, and several other cities.
In a nutshell, our findings indicate that heat indeed has a significant impact on time use and activity-mobility patterns. There is an overall decrease in trip frequency, as well as reduced instances of walking, biking, and transit use. We also found that many trips are shifted temporally to the late evening (cooler) hours of the day when extreme heat conditions prevail. Moreover, we found noteworthy disparities among various market segments. For instance, low-income individuals are less likely to adjust their mobility patterns during extremely hot days, exhibiting potentially greater vulnerability arising from the inability to adapt sufficiently to extreme heat.
I have attached the pre-print version of the paper to this message. Please feel free to share your thoughts or reactions.
Thanks so much. This is what I assumed but did not think of the
disparities in response by income and the the increased vulnerability of
low income or other communities with limited options and potentially little
choice in their travel decisions.
On Tue, Aug 22, 2023 at 7:18 AM ibatur wrote:
> Hi Jim,
>
> Thank you so much for raising this issue regarding whether people change
> their mobility patterns in response to extremely hot weather conditions,
> and if they do, how their mobility choices differ. We have delved into
> these issues in one of our recent papers, which is currently under review.
> We integrated the American Time Use Survey data with the NOAA weather data
> and investigated various aspects of travel on extremely hot days compared
> to regular hot days in a dozen metropolitan areas across the United States,
> including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, New York, Chicago, and several
> other cities.
>
> In a nutshell, our findings indicate that heat indeed has a significant
> impact on time use and activity-mobility patterns. There is an overall
> decrease in trip frequency, as well as reduced instances of walking,
> biking, and transit use. We also found that many trips are shifted
> temporally to the late evening (cooler) hours of the day when extreme heat
> conditions prevail. Moreover, we found noteworthy disparities among various
> market segments. For instance, low-income individuals are less likely to
> adjust their mobility patterns during extremely hot days, exhibiting
> potentially greater vulnerability arising from the inability to adapt
> sufficiently to extreme heat.
>
> I have attached the pre-print version of the paper to this message. Please
> feel free to share your thoughts or reactions.
>
> Attached files:
> batur_et_al_atus_heat_20230801a_unabridged.pdf
>
> --
> Full post:
> https://tmip.org/content/impact-extreme-heat-and-other-weather-travel-tr...
> Manage my subscriptions: https://tmip.org/mailinglist
> Stop emails for this post: https://tmip.org/mailinglist/unsubscribe/14028
>
--
James (Jim) Allday Bunch, JABunch Transportation Consulting
411 Penwood Road, Silver Spring Maryland, 20901
240-271-3534 jabunch.work@gmail.com
Your question raises another question. What happens to our forecast models?
Do regions that are going to face increased heat and humidity, excessive
flooding or droughts, wildfires reduced water supply continue to grow at
the same rate (looking at the South and the Southwest in the US)? Do
demographers account for potential loss of population in their projections
and do politicians/jurisdictions accept them? How to incorporate climate
conditions in forecast scenarios? Should we start looking at insurance
data/models (i am pretty sure those are proprietary) to include in our
forecast models?
On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 7:00 AM jabunch wrote:
> As we are now going through the hottest summer on record and many urban
> areas are experiencing multiple days of greater than 100 or even 110 degree
> heat, I've started to wonder how these conditions are impacting travel.
> Are people making fewer overall trips? Are they changing when they
> travel? Are they changing their mode of travel, particularly their walking
> and biking habits? How will or should these extreme conditions impact our
> future planning in urban areas?
>
> Is anyone studying this in places like Dallas, Houston, or other southern
> and western cities? It would be interesting to see.
>
> Thanks
>
> Jim Bunch
> --
> Full post:
> https://tmip.org/content/impact-extreme-heat-and-other-weather-travel-tr...
> Manage my subscriptions: https://tmip.org/mailinglist
> Stop emails for this post: https://tmip.org/mailinglist/unsubscribe/14028
>
--
Krishnan Viswanathan
5628 Burnside Circle
Tallahassee FL 32312
Krishnan,
I’d note that, not only is the world experiencing extreme heat and wildfires, but also extreme cold and blizzards. There are few (if any) parts of the U.S. that are immune to either extreme weather or their related consequences. Thus, I think it will continue to be a personal choice on whether they’d prefer to “fry” or “freeze.” Time will tell which extreme wins out in terms of residential location. Good discussion…
-Rob
Robert G. Schiffer, AICP
President, FuturePlan Consulting, LLC
1256 Walden Road | Tallahassee, FL 32317
850-570-8958 | 850-877-1995
rob.schiffer@futureplan.us
https://futureplan.us/
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Robert G. Schiffer, AICP
National Practice Leader, Travel Demand Forecasting
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+1 850-570-8958
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From: krisviswanathan=gmail.com@mg.tmip.org On Behalf Of krishnan
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2023 4:12 PM
To: TMIP
Subject: Re: [TMIP] Impact of Extreme Heat and other Weather on Travel (trips, modes, etc.)
Your question raises another question. What happens to our forecast models?
Do regions that are going to face increased heat and humidity, excessive
flooding or droughts, wildfires reduced water supply continue to grow at
the same rate (looking at the South and the Southwest in the US)? Do
demographers account for potential loss of population in their projections
and do politicians/jurisdictions accept them? How to incorporate climate
conditions in forecast scenarios? Should we start looking at insurance
data/models (i am pretty sure those are proprietary) to include in our
forecast models?
On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 7:00 AM jabunch wrote:
> As we are now going through the hottest summer on record and many urban
> areas are experiencing multiple days of greater than 100 or even 110 degree
> heat, I've started to wonder how these conditions are impacting travel.
> Are people making fewer overall trips? Are they changing when they
> travel? Are they changing their mode of travel, particularly their walking
> and biking habits? How will or should these extreme conditions impact our
> future planning in urban areas?
>
> Is anyone studying this in places like Dallas, Houston, or other southern
> and western cities? It would be interesting to see.
>
> Thanks
>
> Jim Bunch
> --
> Full post:
> https://tmip.org/content/impact-extreme-heat-and-other-weather-travel-tr...
> Manage my subscriptions: https://tmip.org/mailinglist
> Stop emails for this post: https://tmip.org/mailinglist/unsubscribe/14028
>
--
Krishnan Viswanathan
5628 Burnside Circle
Tallahassee FL 32312
--
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