Editing Induced demand (section)

=== Sources of induced traffic ===
In the short term, increased travel on new road space can come from one of two sources: diverted travel and induced traffic.  Diverted travel occurs when people divert their trip from another road (change in route) or reschedule their travel to avoid peak period congestion &ndash; but if road capacity is expanded, peak congestion is lower and they can travel at the time they prefer.

Induced traffic occurs when new automobile trips are generated.  This can occur when people choose to travel by car instead of public transport, or decide to travel when they otherwise would not have.<ref name="Litman">{{cite web |url=http://www.vtpi.org/gentraf.pdf |title=Generated Traffic and Induced Travel: Implications for Transport Planning |author=Litman, T. L. |year=2011}}</ref>

Shortening travel times can also encourage longer trips as reduced travel costs encourage people to choose farther destinations.  Although this may not increase the number of trips, it increases vehicle miles travelled.  In the long term, this effect alters [[land use]] patterns as people choose homes and workplace locations farther away than they would have without the expanded road capacity.  These development patterns encourage [[automobile dependency]] which contributes to the high long-term demand elasticities of [[road expansion]].<ref name="Litman"/>