Students’ Housing Characteristics and Effect on Use of Motorised Modes

Abstract

The demand for motorised transport continues to grow in spite of the polluting effect of transport and other environmental consequences. While the growth is more serious in the nations of the developing world, the challenge is faced across all nations of the world. Of particular concern are higher educational institutions (HEIs). HEIs are generally regarded as high-traffic generators. The amount of traffic to, within, and from HEIs is high and attention is being drawn to this of late. This study examines the issue by focusing on HEI students. By targeting a University, Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria, the commuting mode as affected by housing choice and their determinants were investigated. This study made use of a questionnaire administered to students by trained personnel. The questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS (version 23). The result shows that there are three major determinants of students’ housing choices. These are students’ current level, number of occupants per room, and annual cost of accommodation. It further shows that students prefer off-campus accommodation to campus accommodation due to some of these factors, even though campus accommodation is closer than off campus. In addition, it showed that more than 74% of the student’s population reach the University within 30 minutes of travel. This information provides new insight for the development of integrated housing–transportation planning policies that may help to improve the use of non-motorised transport and reduce the contributions from students’ transport to transportation problems for this university and similar ones.