1 Australasian Transport Research Forum 2010 Proceedings 29 September – 1 October 2010, Canberra, Australia Publication website: http://www.patrec.org/atrf.aspx Does increased residential density around train stations encourage more environmentally sustainable travel behaviour? Catherine Ellis 1 , Bruno Parolin 2 1 Project Officer Water Smart Australia Section Commonwealth Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts 02 6274 2473 (work) 0438 204 735 (mobile) catherine.ellis@environment.gov.au , cl.ellis@yahoo.com 2 Faculty of the Built Environment University of New South Wales Sydney, NSW 2052 02 9385 4399 (work) 02 9385 5270 (fax) b.parolin@unsw.edu.au Email for correspondence: cl.ellis@yahoo.com Abstract The conventional wisdom of urban and transport planning is that higher density around public transport nodes encourages greater use of public transport services. This study, conducted in 2007, presents an analysis of this view through a survey of the travel behaviour of apartment dwellers living near train stations on the Sydney rail network. Travel behaviour at the current and previous residence was examined and compared. Results showed that occupants of apartments around train stations had higher public transport use than Sydney- siders in general. However, public transport use did not substantially increase upon moving into an apartment located close to a train station. The study concluded that, in the case of our respondents, people already oriented towards public transport use were moving to locations with good public transport access in order to continue this travel behaviour. This created an apparent, not actual, influence of urban form and public transport access on public transports. Interestingly car use did decrease at the current residence as trips which were previously taken by car, primarily for shopping, were converted to walking trips. This suggests that proximity to amenities, facilitated by mixed land use, can influence travel to increase walking trips – a desirable environmental outcome. The study also found that a wide variety of variables other land use and access to public transport were statistically and significantly related to travel behaviour including: public transport levels of service, car ownership, parking availability and personal attitudes. Our findings are discussed in relation to current policy that promotes increases in density around public transport nodes. 1. Introduction There is an extensive body of international and Australian literature on the relationship between urban form and travel behaviour. Conventional wisdom is that increasing residential density results in more sustainable travel behaviour which has been supported by findings