IN-PERSON Barcelona Livable Cities. Section A

Abstract

Immigrant travel has gained more attention in recent years as immigrants have increasingly accounted for considerable population growth and their demand for transportation services is significant. Many studies have found that immigrants exhibit travel patterns distinguished from their U.S.-born counterparts and that neighborhood environment has important impact on immigrant travel. Some have argued that social capital, defined as “the features of social organizations, such as networks, norms, and trust, that facilitate action and cooperation for mutual benefit” (Putnam, 1995), plays a critical role in travel behavior especially immigrant travel (Asgari et al., 2017; Caspi et al., 2013; Tal and Handy, 2010). However, the role of social capital in travel, especially immigrants’ travel mode choice, has not been fully established (Carrasco et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2021). In addition, although many studies used data with a hierarchical structure, fewer adopted multilevel models, thus empirical results and derived conclusions may be questionable. This paper addresses the aforesaid gaps in the literature. It focuses on the relationship between social capital and immigrant travel mode choice using multilevel multinomial logistic regression model and the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) along with other data for North Texas. The results reveal little evidence of social capital effect but varying impacts of other factors at different levels. Our findings do not negate the role of social capital but raise questions about its ubiquity and constant importance in immigrant travel mode choice.