Classification of Rural Residents on the Basis of Activity Travel Characteristics: Case Study of Villages in Iran. Issue 1 (January 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dashtestaninejad, Hossein; Vaziri, Manouchehr; Timmermans, Harry
• Is Part Of: Transportation research record. Volume 2451:Issue 1(2014)
• Page Start: 20
• Page End: 27
• Publication Date: 2014-01
• Subjects: Transportation -- Periodicals; Roads; Transport -- Périodiques; Routes -- Périodiques; Routes -- Conception et construction -- Périodiques; Roads; Transportation; 388.05
• DOI: 10.3141/2451-03
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0361-1981

Abstract

A significant portion of the population of developing countries resides in rural areas. Despite the importance of rural transportation planning in such countries, little is known about the activity travel characteristics of these rural residents. The topic has been largely ignored in transportation studies. To contribute to the scant literature, this study focused on a classification of representative activity travel–based clusters (RACs) in rural areas of Iran. A place-based interview questionnaire was designed, and data about activity and travel characteristics of rural residents were collected in May 2012. On the basis of the distance between a village and the nearest city, nearby and distant villages were considered in the survey. The statistical analysis used 665 questionnaires. A classification procedure was applied to analyze the data. First, the application of factor analysis with Varimax rotation that used Kaiser criteria resulted in nine factors, extracted from 22 initial variables. The types of villages were used to compare the factors. Results indicated that descriptive factors of rural RACs were strongly affected by the distance between a village and the nearest city. Next, a cluster analysis, which resulted in nine RACs, was conducted. Each RAC consisted of a dominant activity type, activity location, and transportation mode. Through interpretation of the RACs, the rural population was categorized into nine lifestyles. Subsequently, the distribution of village type and respondent gender and age variables for each RAC was explored. Except for age categories, differences between distributions of the village type and gender in the RACs were considerable.