Multimodal trips, quality of life and wellbeing: An exploratory analysis

While multimodal travel is generally associated with greater transport system efficiency and lower traveller satisfaction, less is known about its impact on individual travellers’ general health and wellbeing. An online questionnaire linked to a seven-day travel diary provided demographic, health and detailed trip taking behaviour, across three waves between September 2013 and November 2015 in Sydney, Australia. 532 participants provided 23,776 trips for analysis. Mixed effects logistic regression, clustered by participant ID as a random effect and adjusted for wave as a fixed effect, was used to examine health characteristics of multimodal travellers, and to test associations between taking different modal combinations and an individual's reporting of sufficient physical activity (PA) and quality of life (QoL). Most of the 5,494 trips identified as multimodal involved public transport (PT) with active travel (AT) for access or egress. Individuals taking unimodal AT trips reported better QoL (AOR 1.25, p