Travel distance and land use: a generalized Box-Cox model with conditional spatial lag dependence

Disentangling individual contributions to travel distance continues to be an active field of research, with advances in econometrics being germane. In this study, we focus on several econometric techniques, some of which have been applied in isolation in past studies, but the combination of which has yet to be applied to the problem. We apply a series of statistical tests using the method of artificial regression to test the joint effects of functional form and spatial autocorrelation on model fit. An empirical application is made to the Greater Toronto Area using a large-scale travel survey. Several results found in past studies are refuted through the use of advanced econometric methods, including the previous finding of a positive correlation between travel distance and density in the study region. Model results are validated using bootstrapped sampling and local indicators of spatial association.