Changing travel behaviour in urban China: Evidence from Nanjing 2008–2011

The unprecedented pace and scale of economic, social and spatial transformations in urban China have by now been well documented. But while it is highly likely that these changes relate to far-reaching alterations in travel behaviour as well, so far this topic has received much less attention. With this paper, we aim to help fill this gap through the following research questions: What are the main changes in travel behaviour in Nanjing, China; and how can we explain these changes? We answer these questions on the basis of a study of repeated cross-sectional data from the Nanjing Residents Travel Survey (NRTS) of 2008 and 2011. This leads to three main conclusions: first, changes in the urban form and transport systems of Chinese cities lead to larger daily travel distances and a considerable increase of transport by private cars and public transport at the expense of non-motorised transport modes; second, the impacts of the built environment and socio-demographics as determinants for travel behaviour change in different ways over time; and third, changes are not the same for all groups as there is a widening gap in travel behaviour of low-income groups and middle and high-income groups. We discuss the consequences for social exclusion and environmental sustainability.