How Public Transport Strengthens the City Effect on Car Ownership

With the improvement of living standards, private cars are becoming more affordable for most people; however, the increasing level of car holdings and usages by households would cause serious problems such as traffic congestion, road accidents and air pollution (Bhat & Sen, 2006; Eakins, 2013). Car ownership has been studied in many fields such as economics, demographics, transport, and geography. By using a data of 166,937 respondents from OViN and CROW-KpVV in the Netherlands in 2013, this paper uses a Linear Probability Model to investigate the determinants of car ownership. By focusing on the built environment effect and the interaction effect between public transport accessibility and built environment (city effect), the paper also controls the household characteristics including household size, household income, and number of children within a household. By defining urban differently, the paper also builds up different models by studying car ownership from different perspectives: (1) households with car(s) or without car; and (2) households with one car or more than one cars. When interaction effect is not included, results show that all the variables studied are of highly significance. After including the interaction effect between built environment and public transport, the built environment (city effect) is still highly significant, moreover, it is found to be largely strengthened. This result is especially valuable for urban policy makers, that improving public transport accessibility of a city would strongly decrease the likelihood for those households to own (more) cars.