Does Urban Development Mean Increase in Traffic Activity? An Investigation Into the Factors That Lead to Traffic Increase Due to Increased Development

Abstract

This study focused on investigating the extent to which land use change affects traffic volume changes. Increased development is typically expected to be associated with an increase in traffic volume, holding all other variables constant. However, per the traffic data obtained from NCDOT and the remotely-sensed land use data from the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD), this relationship did not seem to hold for some locations. To investigate the exceptions and boundary conditions, unique variables influencing volume change were identified and the variations amongst them were studied. The results indicated that the pre-existing traffic in the area played a prominent role in the subsequent traffic volume increase following development. Also, in determining the extent to which the relationship between development and traffic increase depend on the land use context, it was concluded that rural areas are more likely to experience an increase in traffic due to increased development as compared to urban land uses.

Keywords: traffic volume, urban development, land use, traffic increase

JEL Classification: R14