Assessing Site Selection of College Student Housing : Commuting Efficiency across Time

Universities around the world are promoting walking for their students because it provides many health and environmental benefits at the personal as well as the community level. This paper aims to help universities, city planners and housing investors in the process of efficient site selection for future student housing projects, by analyzing off-campus students’ commuting habits and travel time preferences to and from the university campuses. An online survey is operated to collect responses of students (n= 527) from two Jordanian universities located within the city of Irbid (N-Jordan). Results indicate that the mean value for students’ longest preferred one-way walking duration is 17.04± 8.25 minutes for the whole sample. A statistically significant negative correlation is found between students’ longest preferred one-way walking duration and age. The percentage of students who would accept this duration was represented in a formula in order to calculate the accumulated walking potential of varied sites around university campuses. The paper presented a local scenario using GIS mapping where this process was implemented to evaluate prospect vacant sites' walking potential around Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan.