El presente estudio examina la influencia del entorno construido de las zonas de residencia de las personas sobre la decisión de viajar en tres modos de viaje, el vehículo privado, el transporte público y los modos no motorizados, para la ciudad de Montevideo.

Understanding the determinants of travel mode choice is a fundamental input to design public policies that transform urban daily life, promote the sustainability of transport sector and generate greater efficiency, quality and accessibility to the system. The present study analyses whether the decision of transport mode is influenced by built environment characteristics of residential areas, taking into account three modes of transportation, car, public transportand non-motorized modes, for the city of Montevideo. The empirical methodology used is based on logistic multilevel model estimation to determine the effect of the built environment and the variability of residence area, controlling for three sets of variables: socio-demographic characteristics, travel attributes and activity characteristics. Multilevel models allowed to introduce two levels of analysis, individual travel and zones, to contrast hypotheses on variables for both levels. The main conclusion is that the choice of transport modes presents heterogeneity at residence area level, since different probabilities of using the modes by geographic zones have beenfound. The diversity of land uses, the main indicator of built environment, resulted in significant effects on the three modes of transportation, positively affecting public transport and negatively affecting the private vehicle and non-motorized travels. The proximity of bus stops in residence areas increases the probability of non motorized travels and decrease the probability of using acar. From these and other results achieved as a result of this investigation, itis inferred that it is possible to carry out land use and urban design policies that encourage the use of non-motorized modes and public transportion, and discourage the use of private vehicles.