Trip Generation of Student-Oriented Housing

Developments
Elizabeth Johnson 1; Rod E. Turochy, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE 2; and Jeffrey J. LaMondia, Ph.D. 3

Abstract: Estimation of trips generated by various types of land uses is essential for many transportation planning and engineering activities.
Trip generation models exist for a wide variety of land uses, including apartment housing, but a model specific to off-campus college student
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housing apartments does not exist. Student-oriented apartment housing is believed to have different trip patterns than general-purpose apart-
ments due to students unique schedules and travel patterns. The research presented herein develops alternative linear and log-linear trip
generation models based on the vehicle-trips generated by 26 student-oriented apartment complexes in three college towns in the southeastern
United States. Typical trip generation models for apartment housing appear to substantially underestimate the number of vehicle-trips
generated during the evening peak period when applied to student-oriented off-campus housing developments in college-town settings.
Considerable differences in directional distribution exist between the sites studied herein and typically used values. Finally, the models
developed herein exhibit lower coefficients of variation and better predictive capability than do the models for apartment housing as presented
in a current publication. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)UP.1943-5444.0000362. 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Introduction
Accurate estimation of trips generated by housing developments
is critical for a variety of transportation analyses. The Trip
Generation Manual, published by the Institute of Transportation
Engineers, is a key resource for transportation professionals for es-
timating the number and directional distribution of vehicle-trips
generated by a particular development (ITE 2012). Although the
Trip Generation Manual includes trip rates for a wide variety of
land uses, it is recognized that local areas may want to supplement
the tables with local forecasting trip rates to improve accuracy of
traffic impact assessments (Mousavi et al. 2012). One such land
use with regional variability is apartment complexes: these housing
developments can differ in terms of resident ages, household com-
position, incomes, destination choices, and car ownership, among
others.
This study develops a trip generation model for student-
occupied apartment complexes that are common in over 4,000 ur-
ban and suburban settings across the United States (NCES 2015).
Currently, transportation planners only have trip generation models
and rates for generic apartments (Land Use 220, Apartments, in the
Trip Generation Manual) at their disposal to estimate the vehicle-
trips and ultimately traffic impacts created by these developments.
However, although student-oriented apartments function much the
same as these generic apartments, they include a number of char-
acteristics that affect their trip generation rates (Li et al. 2005).
These apartments are marketed toward undergraduate and graduate
1 that include large universities. They are typical apartment building
Transportation Analyst, Kimley-Horn, 817 West Peachtree St., Suite
601, Atlanta, GA 30308. E-mail: elizabeth.johnson@kimley-horn.com
2
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Auburn Univ., 238
Harbert Engineering Center, Auburn, AL 36849 (corresponding author).
E-mail: rodturochy@auburn.edu
3
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Auburn Univ., 238
Harbert Engineering Center, Auburn, AL 36849. E-mail: jlamondia@
auburn.edu
Note. This manuscript was submitted on July 15, 2015; approved on
July 5, 2016; published online on August 5, 2016. Discussion period open
until January 5, 2017; separate discussions must be submitted for individual
papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Urban Planning and Devel-
opment, ASCE, ISSN 0733-9488.
college students but are not dormitories. The students live autono-
mous lifestyles but their activities are most often focused on the
nearby universities or colleges. Additionally, the number of trips
generated differs from generic apartments because of the demo-
graphic differences between the predominantly young residents
of student-oriented apartments and the broader age range of resi-
dents of general-purpose apartments.
This study also compares the generalized apartment trip gener-
ation rates found in the Trip Generation Manual with the estimated
trip rates for this common, but unique, type of housing complex.
Student-oriented apartment complexes in Auburn, Alabama;
Tuscaloosa, Alabama; and Clemson, South Carolina (college towns
in the southeastern United States) were included in the study. New
models for morning and evening peak period vehicle-trip genera-
tion were developed and then evaluated from the data collected
in this study. Differences in predictive capability for generated
vehicle-trips, as well as directional distribution, between the new
models and the Land Use 220 models were analyzed.
Background and Methodology
Student-oriented housing is a common land use type in many urban
and suburban regions (Charbonneau et al. 2006; Hubbard 2009)
that have seen a rise in development across the United States in
the past decade (Balsas 2003). These facilities are not dormitories
and are not located on university campuses; instead they are located
off-campus within small cities (referred to as college towns)
structures that cater to young adults attending college, and, as
such, have different trip rates than typical apartment buildings
(Gumprecht 2006). Although the trip generation characteristics
of this specialized type of housing appear not to have been studied
extensively, some types of specialized residential communities,
such as senior-oriented housing and retirement communities, have
been examined many times. Studies of specialized populations are
valuable as they may identify travel patterns that differ from those
of the overall population. These differences may have ramifications
for evaluations of traffic impacts, estimations of diurnal traffic
patterns, and other transportation analyses. For example, one study

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J. Urban Plann. Dev., 04016029

 of senior housing developments, using data from locations in
Arizona, California, and Florida noted that the peak time-of-day
for trips is late morning or early afternoon (Corcoran 1996).
Another study that used data from eight age-restricted single-family
housing developments in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania
found that the number of vehicle-trips produced was approximately
one-third of the amount that would be predicted from a single-
family detached housing development during the morning and
evening peak hours (Racca 2006). A limited number of studies
of age-restricted housing communities have found that the number
of vehicle-trips produced is substantially larger than the relevant
models in the Trip Generation Manual would predict (Flynn
and Boenau 2007; Jeihani and Camilo 2011). Another study of a
specialized type of housing facility examined trip generation for jail
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facilities inhabited by incarcerated persons (French et al. 2000).
Trips made both by employees and visitors were included; trip
generation rates per bed and per employee were developed. These
studies illustrate that many specialized types of housing have been
studied, and these locations tend to produce trip rates that may de-
viate widely from those of generalized, all-purpose housing.
Off-campus student-oriented housing is another example of a
specialized type of housing and is a common land use type both
in college towns and near colleges and universities in large metro-
politan areas, and the traffic impacts of such developments are sub-
stantial. A recent study of trip generation patterns associated with
six student-oriented apartment buildings near the University of
Minnesota found that during the weekday morning and evening
peak periods, 0.13 (morning) and 0.26 (evening) vehicle trips were
generated per dwelling unit (Spack 2012). These values are sub-
stantially lower than the respective rates of 0.51 and 0.62 found
for Land Use 220 (general purpose apartments) in the Trip
Generation Manual. However, the sites in that study differ from
a typical college-town setting in many ways: the study took place
in a heavily urbanized portion of a large metropolitan area, on-site
parking was relatively limited (among the six sites, an average of
0.49 parking spaces per dwelling unit were provided), and many
modes of transportation (such as walking, cycling, and transit) were
available. In contrast, college towns are typically small urban or
suburban settings, with less dense development patterns than in
large cities; parking tends to be more plentiful than in large cities,
and access or convenience to alternate modes tends to be more
limited. Although college towns play an important role in shaping
American culture, little research has been completed to quantify
their effect on traffic patterns (Gumprecht 2003). Many metrics
can be used to define the concept of a college town; among these
are employment at the college or university as a share of overall
local or regional employment, ratio of student enrollment to city
and county population, and percentage of local labor force working
in the education sector (Gumprecht 2003). These metrics were used
to identify candidate communities for this study.
Site Selection and Data Collection
Student-oriented apartment complexes in several college towns
were selected for data collection to support model development.
College towns were selected based on criteria such as size of
the university with respect to the size of the town and the willing-
ness of the universitys Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE)
student chapter to help with data collection. Eventually, Clemson
University in Clemson, South Carolina, the University of Alabama
in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Auburn University in Auburn,
Alabama, were selected as sources of data collection sites. The
student organizations at each school created a list of apartment
ASCE 04016029-2
J. Urban Plann. Dev., 04016029
complexes that could serve as potential data collection sites.
The list of potential sites was to include a wide variety of com-
plexes with regards to size and distance from campus. Small apart-
ment complexes, those with fewer than around 30 dwelling units,
were not considered due to the risk that they might be less statisti-
cally relevant. Twenty-six sites across the three cities were chosen
for data collection. Thirteen of these sites were located in Auburn,
seven were located in Clemson, and six were located in Tuscaloosa.
The average number of units for these sites was 174, with a range
between 36 and 374 units. These units typically contain two to four
bedrooms. The average distance to campus was 3.7 km (2.3 mi),
and nearly all sites had access to some sort of bus transit system.
Data were collected on weekdays during the peak hour of ad-
jacent street traffic between March and May 2012. To represent
typical days, all data were collected on Tuesdays, Wednesdays,
and Thursdays. The data were collected from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00
a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in accordance with typical practice
for residential trip generation studies. The data were collected by
members of the ITE student chapter at each university. In addition
to vehicular traffic, data collection volunteers also counted transit
ridership, bicyclists, and pedestrians. All data were collected in
15-min intervals and separated as entering and exiting counts.
Data Analysis
The directional distributions of the collected data were calculated
and compared to the directional distributions of Land Use 220
(Apartments) in the Trip Generation Manual. The directional dis-
tributions for the collected data are shown in Table 1. Table 1 shows
the data at the city-specific level, followed by the data for all three
study cities combined. The values for each city and then across the
three cities are weighted averages based on the number of trips at
each study site. Finally, for comparison purposes, the directional
distributions for the apartment sites included in ITE 220 are shown
in Table 1 as well. Overall, the sites exhibited a distribution of 25%
entering and 75% exiting for the morning peak hour, which is com-
parable to the distribution of 20% entering and 80% exiting for
Land Use 220 in the Trip Generation Manual. However, the after-
noon peak period exhibited a distribution of 52% entering and 48%
exiting, which is quite different from average distribution for Land
Use 220, which is 65% entering and 35% exiting.
An average trip rate, expressed in trips per dwelling unit, was
determined for each site, and a weighted average was determined
for each city and overall. The weighted average (in which each
sites rate was weighted by the number of apartments at that site)
was used so smaller apartment complexes would not represent a
disproportionate share of the average. Based on the data collected
in this study, Tables 2 and 3 show the weighted average rate, range
of rates, standard deviation, and coefficients of variation (COV) of
the data for both the morning and evening peak periods. These data
are shown for the grouping of sites in each of the three study cities,
then for all three study cities combined, and then, for reference
Table 1. Directional Distributions
Morning Evening
City/model Entering (%) Exiting (%) Entering (%) Exiting (%)
Auburn 34 66 49 51
Clemson 16 84 57 43
Tuscaloosa 18 82 54 46
Overall 25 75 52 48
ITE 220 20 80 65 35
J. Urban Plann. Dev.
 Table 2. Morning Peak Period Trip-Generation Rate Statistics
Average Standard Number Coefficient
City/model rate Range deviation of sites of variation
Auburn 0.41 0.261.00 0.21 13 0.49
Clemson 0.59 0.140.85 0.26 7 0.44
Tuscaloosa 0.45 0.210.73 0.19 5 0.42
Overall 0.47 0.141.00 0.21 25 0.45
ITE 220 0.51 0.101.02 0.73 78 1.43

Table 3. Evening Peak Period Trip-Generation Rate Statistics

Average Standard Number Coefficient
City/model rate Range deviation of sites of variation
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Fig. 1. Trip generation of the morning peak period

Auburn 0.95 0.741.53 0.25 13 0.26
Clemson 0.88 0.451.27 0.34 7 0.39
Tuscaloosa 0.99 0.411.58 0.38 6 0.38
Overall 0.94 0.411.58 0.31 26 0.33
ITE 220 0.62 0.101.64 0.82 90 1.32 450
400 ITE Land Use 220:
T = 0.55x + 17.65
350
R2 = 0.77

purposes, the same statistics from the Land Use 220 models as
given in the Trip Generation Manual are shown. The morning peak
period average rate for all the collected data combined was 0.47
trips per dwelling unit, which is comparable to the Land Use
220 rate of 0.51 trips per dwelling unit. However, the COV for
the data collected in this study (0.45) was less than one-third of
the COV reported for Land Use 220 (1.43). The data for the eve-
ning peak period exhibited a different trend. The overall rate for the
collected data was 0.94 trips per dwelling unit, considerably higher
than Land Use 220s rate of 0.62 trips per dwelling unit. The col-
lected data at the 26 sites in this study had a COV (0.33) of about
25% of the COV for Land Use 220 (1.32). The relatively low COV
values indicate a high degree of consistency in the number of gen-
erated trips among the developments considered in this study and
ultimately strengthen the resulting models.
The vehicle-trip generation data were plotted in a similar fashion
to the charts in the Trip Generation Manual. Both linear and log-
arithmic models to express vehicle-trips as a function of dwelling
units were considered in this study; the linear models fit the data
better than the logarithmic forms. To enable both development
of new models and subsequent validation of them, approximately
half of the data collection sites from each city was used in the
development of the models; the other half was used to evaluate
model performance. A random number generator was used to de-
termine which data collection sites would be used to formulate the
models.
The models developed in this study as well as the models for
Land Use 220 are shown in Figs. 1 and 2, for the morning and
evening peak periods, respectively. The widely used ITE Trip
Generation Manual often predicts the number of trips from a res-
idential-type land use based on the number of dwelling units
present at the location; this follows from the idea that trips are de-
rived from (and dependent on) the number of people that reside at
that location. Figs. 1 and 2 highlight the similar (but not exactly the
same) effects of using dwelling units to predict trips. The dashed
line represents the best-fit curve for the data points and the solid
line represents the equation provided in the Trip Generation
Manual. As expected upon review of Tables 2 and 3, the data from
the morning peak period fit closely with Land Use 220s data. How-
ever, the collected data during the evening peak period show a trip
generation rate more than 50% larger (0.94 versus 0.62) than the
rate associated with Land Use 220.
T = Vehicle-trips
300
250
200
150
100
Predicve Model:
T = 0.87x + 3.79
50 R = 0.74
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
X = Number of Dwelling Units
Fig. 2. Trip generation of the evening peak period
Several statistical analyses were used to determine the validity
of the models created in this study. The expected number of
vehicle-trips for the sites not used in model development was esti-
mated using both the new models and those for Land Use 220. A
paired two-tailed t-test was used to determine whether the differ-
ences between the trip rates predicted by the models were statisti-
cally significant. The p-values for the morning and evening peak
periods were 0.00017 and 0.00014, respectively; therefore, the dif-
ferences were found to be highly statistically significant.
To evaluate the predictive accuracy for the new models and
those of Land Use 220, the mean absolute percentage error
(MAPE) and root-mean square error (RMSE) were determined
for the morning and evening peak periods for both models. For the
morning peak period, the new model exhibited a MAPE of 39.6%
and a RMSE of 41.8 trips when compared to Land Use 220 and a
MAPE of 39.5% and RMSE of 43.7 trips when compared to the
collected data used to create the new model. It could not be con-
cluded that the model created in this study for the morning peak
period was more accurate at predicting trips generated by stu-
dent-oriented housing developments than the existing Land Use
220 for apartments. For the evening peak period, the differences
in model performance were considerable; the new model exhibited
a MAPE of 52.5% and a RMSE of 73.2 trips when compared to
Land Use 220 and a MAPE of 26.8% and a RMSE of 44.4 trips
when compared to the collected data used to create the new model.
It can be concluded that the model for the evening peak period cre-
ated in this study better predicts trips generated by student-oriented
housing developments than does the model for Land Use 220 in the
Trip Generation Manual.

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J. Urban Plann. Dev., 04016029

 Conclusions and Recommendations
The models for Land Use 220 in the Trip Generation Manual
appear to substantially underestimate the number of vehicle-trips
generated during the evening peak period when applied to stu-
dent-oriented off-campus housing developments in college-town
settings. Additionally, the predictive capability of the model created
in this study for the evening peak period was considerably better
(average error of about half that found using the Land Use 220
model). For the morning peak period, the differences between
the model for off-campus student-oriented housing developed in
this study and the generic apartment model in the Trip Generation
Manual are much smaller and may be considered negligible. For
both time periods, the coefficients of variation for the new models
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were substantially lower than those for the existing generic apart-
ment models. Regarding directional distribution, there were note-
worthy differences, particularly in the evening period. The Trip
Generation Manual reports an average distribution of 65% entering
(for Land Use 220), but only 52% of vehicle-trips were entering
(and 48% exiting) among the student-oriented housing sites con-
sidered in this study.
Until a more specific land use category is created in the Trip
Generation Manual, analysts should be cautious when applying
the models for Land Use 220 to student-focused off-campus hous-
ing. Planners should collect data for similar sites before completing
or reviewing traffic impact studies for new developments of this
type. If data collection is not feasible, planners should attempt to
find collected trip rates for similar sites in similar locations.
Due to resource constraints, this study only included college
towns in the southeastern United States. The results of this study
should be strongly considered for use in other college-town settings
in this region, but when applying these models to college student
housing in other environments (such as in large cities with stronger
multimodal transportation systems), consideration should be given
to possible differences in trip-generating characteristics. Additional
data collection efforts might also capture the number of bedrooms
per dwelling units and the accessibility of other modes to further
support the creation of a land use specific to off-campus student
housing. Finally, additional model structures that expand upon the
ITE trip generation-style models would be worthwhile to explore.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Paul and Marilyn Box, and the Box
Transportation Research Trust Fund, for the support that made this
ASCE 04016029-4
J. Urban Plann. Dev., 04016029
research possible. The authors would also like to thank the ITE
student chapters at Auburn University, Clemson University, and
the University of Alabama for their assistance with data collection.
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