The 2007-08 French National Travel Survey (FNTS) included questions about the trip experience for a random subsample of the respondents' daily travel, offering a rare opportunity to examine a national profile of attitudes toward travel. This study analyzes the self-reported (mental and/or physical) fatigue associated with the selected trip, and its (un)pleasantness. Only 8% of trips were tiring, and fewer than 4% were unpleasant, indicating that travel is by no means universally distasteful. We present a bivariate probit model of the mental and physical fatigue associated with the trip, and binary logit models of whether the trip was pleasant (yes/no) or unpleasant (yes/no). For the most part, socioeconomic variables and indicators of trip length, distance, purpose, and mode have logical relationships to fatigue and pleasantness. However, 11 variables out of 31 common to both sets of models have impacts on fatigue that are opposite to those on un/pleasantness, pointing to conditions under which a trip can be fatiguing but pleasant, or conversely. Accordingly, a key contribution of the research is to demonstrate the value of jointly considering both constructs in order to more comprehensively capture the overall attitudes toward the travelling activity. It is also of interest that activities conducted during the trip appear in both sets of models. In particular, the results suggest that although listening to the radio/music decreases the tendency to rate the trip as mentally fatiguing, it tends to be seen as ameliorating the disutility of a tedious trip more than increasing the pleasantness of the trip. Among the policy-relevant findings, we note the especially negative attitudes towards multimodal trips and trips mainly involving driving cars.

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This paper presents a research to assess real estate gains brought by a new light railinfrastructure: the T3 tramway line in Paris opened in December 2006. Based oncomprehensive geo-located data, it mainly focuses on econometric hedonic modelling where accessibility gains are included besides other intrinsic and extrinsic variables. In spite of different specifications, no model yielded any significant effect of the new line. Finally, the rationale for such an outcome is discussed, and by comparison with other studies, the factors for a new line to provide significant gains are listed

This paper addresses the question of bicycles as an access mode to train stations in exurban areas. The aim is to provide a method to estimate the modal shift potential from car to cycle (regular bike or pedelec) for residents accessing the station. Putting a figure on this potential makes it possible to refine policies for promoting cycle access to stations like sizing the cycle parking infrastructure, and to assess the benefits of bike and ride solutions for users and communities. Focusing on exurban areas where the level of cycling is low, the study describes a prospective approach to assess the modal shift potential from car to cycle under the assumption of favoring cycle access conditions resulting from proactive policies. In order to build scenarios at a suitable scale for cycling mobility, several high resolution datasets and mapping tools are integrated to support access mode share modeling within the catchment area of the station. The paper describes the access mode share model and its use for prospective analysis about shift potential from car to cycle, on the basis of contrasting scenarios for cycle access conditions and for changes in station ridership. The various modal shift hypotheses are discussed. The method is applied to Val d'Amboise, a French exurban territory with good quality train services and room for growth for cycle access to the station. The prospective situation under a bicycle-friendly scenario is characterized by similar modal shares for the car and the bicycle as access modes to the station, including a high level of pedelec use. Car parking access control at the station would be a key factor to achieve such a modal shift.

International audienceThis paper is derived from project VERT (evaluation of the bicycle as a feeder mode to rail outside urban areas). It focuses on economic analysis implemented in several modeled scenarios, making it possible to compare bike and ride solutions with park and ride solutions, and to draw a cost-benefit analysis. It is applied in a case study in Amboise, comparing scenarios for developing the bicycle as a feeder mode to train, built from observations of present situation, software development to map catchment areas of bicycles and pedelecs, and computing the cost-benefit balance of bike and ride