Has the Relationship between Urban and Suburban Automobile Travel Changed across Generations? Comparing Millennials and Generation Xers in the United States

TL;DR

This study analyzes U.S. travel survey data from 1995 to 2017 to compare Millennials and Gen Xers, revealing that Millennials consistently travel less by car in urban and suburban areas during early adulthood, independent of socioeconomic factors.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive comparison of Millennial and Gen X automobile travel patterns across different neighborhood types over multiple years.

Findings

Millennials have lower daily vehicle miles and trips than Gen Xers at ages 16-28.

The relationship between residential density and travel is weaker for Millennials.

Millennials remain less auto-centric than Gen Xers during early adulthood.

Abstract

Using U.S. nationwide travel surveys for 1995, 2001, 2009 and 2017, this study compares Millennials with their previous generation (Gen Xers) in terms of their automobile travel across different neighborhood patterns. At the age of 16 to 28 years old, Millennials have lower daily personal vehicle miles traveled and car trips than Gen Xers in urban (higher-density) and suburban (lower-density) neighborhoods. Such differences remain unchanged after adjusting for the socio-economic, vehicle ownership, life cycle, year-specific and regional-specific factors. In addition, the associations between residential density and automobile travel for the 16- to 28-year-old Millennials are flatter than that for Gen Xers, controlling for the aforementioned covariates. These generational differences remain for the 24- to 36-year-old Millennials, during the period when the U.S. economy was recovering from the recession. These findings show that, in both urban and suburban neighborhoods, Millennials in the U.S. are less auto-centric than the previous generation during early life stages, regardless of economic conditions. Whether such difference persists over later life stages remains an open question and is worth continuous attention.