Project management BBSR:
Stephan Günthner

Summary

Diminishing growth in shopping transport

Shopping transport is an important part of daily travel, and it accounts for 32 percent of trips and 17 percent of travel distances. Shopping trips tend to increase in distance over time due to concentration processes in the retail sector. As a consequence, shopping travel strongly increased over the last decades, and the private car benefited most from this growth. More recently, the increase attenuated. The mean distance of shopping trips increased by three percent between 2002 and 2008, achieving a value of 5 km (1976: 3.6 km). However, this value does not reflect a typical shopping trip distance, as it is strongly influenced by few extremely long trips. Half of shopping trips is shorter than 1.9 km. The mode split of shopping trips remained relatively constant between 2002 and 2008. The share of the bicycle slightly increased by one percentage point, and a slight shift towards car driving happened at the expense of car passengers.

Good local supply can help save traffic

Well developed local supply with groceries and other convenience goods in a walking distance helps increase the share of non-motorised trips, reduce car travel, decrease travel distances, and increase residents' neighbourhood satisfaction considerably. This is even true for individuals with access to a car.

Urban form impacts shopping and travel behaviour

Urban form has a stronger impact on mode choice, travel distances and total travel volumes than other variables. Shopping trip distances and car use increase significantly with decreasing municipality size. Within municipalities, shopping trips in neighbourhoods with good walking access are remarkably shorter than in other neighbourhoods, and they are more often undertaken on foot. This corresponds with high levels of satisfaction with access to shopping. Walking access to convenience stores is poor or not available at all for just nine percent of the population in the largest cities, but for almost 40 percent in the smallest municipalities.

Local supply quality has an important impact on small-scale trip-making

The chances for non-motorised shopping are strongly influenced by a differentiated local supply structure. Isolated facilities, such as a supermarket, may be backbones for local supply, but they contribute less to short trips than a multifaceted range of facilities. In neighbourhoods with mixed land-use, low levels of car ownership and a stronger willingness of car owners to walk boost the impact of local facilities. A good local supply quality increases the attachment to the neighbourhood in terms of trip-making by ten percentage points even among car owners. This is at the expense of peripheral shopping centres at the urban fringe and other places of shopping which are often linked to very long trip distances.

Distance thresholds for walking are low

About 90 percent of shopping trips are undertaken on foot when the distance is shorter than 200 m. A distinct distance threshold for walking is at about 400 m. This threshold is partly overcome by bicycle up to a distance of about 800 m. The share of driving starkly increases from a distance of 800 m. Among those without access to a car the threshold of walking is clearly higher, at about 800 to 1,200 m (2 km for nonmotorised trips including walking and cycling). In small municipalities car owners drive even very short distances, rendering the share of the car markedly higher than in cities. Local shopping is time sensitive. Shopping on foot or by bicycle 'around the corner' thus meets people’s preferences. Weekly shopping and beverage shopping are, if ever possible, done by car.

The elderly, households with children, and households without a car benefit from good local supply

Adolescents, women, and individuals without a car disproportionately do their shopping in the vicinity and in integrated centres (i.e. at central locations). Gender differences tend to decline over time, but they are marked in families with infants or pre-school children. Shopping trips are often embedded in complex trip-chains. This is particularly true for women, employees, single parents, and generally for households with (small) children. Trip-chaining may be interpreted as a result of a complex and turbulent daily life, and they may reflect an efficient daily scheduling. The time effort for shopping trips is disproportionately high among the elderly, individuals without a car in their household, low-income groups, and, thus, migrants (lack of cars).

A lack of local facilities impairs quality of life particularly among the elderly

The frequency of shopping among the elderly is striking. Even the 'old aged' (75+ years) go shopping more often than young adults, and doing so, they walk considerably more often. The reason is not just the lack of cars, but also social networking in the neighbourhood, health precaution, and specific ways of daily scheduling. The elderly are thus particularly strongly affected by curtailing local supply.

Local supply is more than just shopping

Local supply has important social and communicative functions for a growing number of individuals (the elderly, unemployed, household provisioners). It is an important footfall generator and founder of identity for urban neighbourhoods, district centres and town centres; as soon as residents identify with their local supply facilities, they may be prepared to walk even relatively long distances.

Frontiers of economic viability for shops

The structural change in the retail sector is characterised by increasing sales spaces, economic concentration, the development of new business types, and changing location needs. Discounters prefer particularly car-oriented locations. The sales volumes have shifted towards discounters at the expense of more traditional shops. The departments of expansion in retail chains generally claim for more than 5,000 inhabitants as the minimum level of viability for groceries. Given a radius of 1,000 m, this demand potential is only achieved in high-density urban neighbourhoods.

New trends in the retail sector are a chance for local supply and local mobility

Where the 'classic' forms of retail have withdrawn from the market, alternative concepts of operating local supply, such as DORV centres, CAP markets, MarktTreff etc., have a chance. However, such concepts have certain requirements, including a well functioning neighbourhood, civic engagement, and actors who are prepared to cooperate, e.g. social bodies, tradesmen, or housing companies. Concepts based on small sales spaces, such as city markets, may fill the gaps in densely settled areas of cities with 100,000 inhabitants or more. Largescale food enterprises plan to expand such concepts in the next years.

Municipalities should consequently make use of the options they have

The erection and consequent realisation of municipal retail and centre concepts has proved successful for the regulation of local supply and the protection of centres favoured from a planning perspective on the municipal level. These concepts may be supported by improved conditions for local mobility on foot and by bicycle. Plans and concepts should be developed and realised in close cooperation with actors in the retail sector and private residents.

Such concepts, however, can only have an impact as long as policy makers on the municipal as well as on the district/neighbourhood level respect their own decisions and consequently support their realisation.

Local shopping on foot can not be realised everywhere

In the medium to longer term it will not be possible to provide stationary local supply everywhere. There will be areas in the countryside as well as in cities in which local facilities within walking distance will not be economically viable any more. This should be made transparent to people in order to show plainly the consequences of residential location decisions. Strategies for underserved areas have to be developed and reflected thoroughly (e.g. support of out-migration, support of neighbourly help, mobile shops).

The abstract is part of the German publication "Ohne Auto einkaufen. Nahversorgung und Nahmobilität in der Praxis", Werkstatt: Praxis, Heft 76, Hrsg.: BMVBS, Berlin 2011 - out of print
ISBN 978-3-87994-977-9, urn:nbn:de:101:1-201112164131
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