Utility of mixed-use development by reducing aggregated travel time for multiple non-work activities: A case of Seoul, Korea

There is a substantial body of research regarding the relationship between the built environment and travel behavior. Most literature focus on the direct relationship between the spatial characteristics and travel behavior and the results show mixed outcome. We argue that a utility- and activity-based approach is required to better understand the relationship between built environment and travel behavior. In addition, people make multiple non-work activities everyday including shopping, entertainment, food, and other services. Therefore, we hypothesize that people chose their travels to reduce the aggregated travel time for all their activities instead of counting each travel separately. We conducted a Time Use Survey (TUS) at a mixed-use building, called ‘Central City Complex (CCC),’ and compared the results with National TUS data about Seoul citizens. The analysis confirms that CCC users spend 17.9% less travel time per shopping activity and 46.1% less travel time per meeting. CCC users spend 38.7% less time in travel per 10 min of shopping, 37.4% less per 10 min of art and education activities, and 15.7% less per 10 min of food activity. This study calls attention to utility perspective of people's travel choice, beyond physical aspects of built environment such as distance or density.