Davis Shopping Study: Factors Influencing Impacts of Big-Box Retail on Shopping Travel

Shopping travel constitutes a significant share of all daily travel in the U.S. This travel has significant environmental impacts with respect to energy consumption, air quality, water quality, and climate change. Understanding the factors that influence choices about shopping provides a basis for the development of policies that help ensure that consumer needs are met while the environmental costs of shopping travel are minimized. The purpose of this study is to examine shopping behavior of residents of Davis, California before and after the opening of a Target store in Davis in 2009. The opening of the store presented a unique opportunity to study the causal effects on shopping behavior of a significant change in the retail landscape. A survey was completed of Davis residents as to their shopping travel just before the opening of the store and one year after the store opening. Using data from this survey, it was estimated that there was a significant reduction in vehicle miles of travel for shopping purposes for Davis residents. These results are relevant to current policy debates in California over the role of "smart growth" planning policies in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as a way to meet Senate Bill 375 requirements.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $65000
• Contract Numbers:

  7868

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  University Transportation Centers Program
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Performing Organizations:

  University of California, Davis

  Institute of Transportation Studies
  Davis, CA  United States  95616
• Principal Investigators:

  Handy, Susan

• Start Date: 20120801
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• Source Data: RiP Project 33493

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air quality; Energy consumption; Environmental impacts; Greenhouse gases; Shopping trips; Smart growth; Surveys; Vehicle miles of travel
• Geographic Terms: Davis (California)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I15: Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01471040
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: University of California Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: 7868
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Jan 31 2013 1:01AM