Shopping Trip-Chaining Behavior at Malls in a Transitional Economy

Abstract

Cities in transitional economies are experiencing a proliferation of newly constructed suburban shopping malls. Curiously, travel habits to these new malls are quite distinct from those generally experienced in North America, particularly regarding trip chaining. While most weekday afternoon mall trips in developed nations are chained, few are linked in countries with transitional economies. Because trip chaining is a behavior strongly associated with sprawl, this research seeks to examine the nascent trip chaining at the four new peripheral malls in Prague, Czech Republic, to identify factors that contribute to such travel patterns. This research explores two types of trip chaining among a survey sample of 782 people. External trip chaining considers activities made before and after the mall stop, while internal trip chaining considers activities made during the mall stop. Overall, only 18.1% of patrons made external trip chains, while 42.3% made internal trip chains. This general finding suggests that, in the absence of many retail alternatives, mall patrons in transitional economies may substitute internal trip chaining for the external trip chaining that characterizes travel patterns in North America. This research demonstrates that male gender, high income, working age, small household size, ownership of multiple cars, suburban home location, few additional car passengers, weekly mall trip frequency, a long access travel time, poor mall accessibility, and a short mall activity duration are tied to higher rates of external trip chaining. Concomitantly, female gender, high income, working age, large household size, private vehicle use, additional passengers in the car, mall trip frequency, poor mall accessibility, grocery shopping, high mall expenditure, and long mall activity duration are tied to higher rates of internal trip chaining. These findings suggest that land use policies may be effective in limiting the growth of external trip chaining and maximizing internal trip chaining among suburban mall patrons.