An Investigation into the Effects of Individual and Spatial Factors on the Urban Trips (Case Study: Babol City)

Trips, as an inevitable part of the urban life, take place in various modes, each having it’s own special consequences on the urban space. For this reason the different modes taken by citizens can be assessed by urban planner carefully from different aspects. more sustainable trip mode, however, are encouraged by them to achieve more desirable urban environment which, in turn, would lead to sustainable cities. There are some main factors which affect trip modes, including urban spatial structure characters, individual and family characteristics, economic situation, and etc. This paper aims at investigating the effects of individual and spatial factors on trip mode choice of households in Babol as one the main cities in the north of Iran. The research question is finding out the spatial factors effects on trip modes in proportion to those of the individual factors. 300 of households were surveyed using questionnaire which were delivered based on where samples live in three zones; inner (around CBD), middle and fringe zones. The results, obtained by multinomial regression analysis, show that both of these factors affect family’s trip mode choice to roughly the same extent.