Interrelationships of Job-housing Relocations and Commuting Patterns: Commuting Time Stability: a Test of Co-location Hypothesis

During the past few decades, the populations of many U. S. and European cities have shown the same residence and workplace mobility patterns: Annually, approximately 10 percent of the population changed residences and approximately 20 percent of employed workers changed workplaces within the same metropolitan area. Even though the Seattle metropolitan region experienced a substantial amount of residential and workplace mobility and a boom in employment and population in the 1990s, the morning commute time and distance was roughly constant. To explain this situation, researchers have proposed a co-location hypothesis, that is, residents and workers will change their residence or workplace or both adapt to worsening congestion. This research attempted to shed light on the mechanism of the co-location hypothesis and commute mode adjustment using the Puget Sound Transportation Panel data consisting of seven waves of 2 consecutive years between 1989 and 1997 conducted by the Puget Sound Regional Council. This study attempted to understand commuting patterns by residential and workplace changers.