Evaluation of Travel Pattern of Young Mothers in Developing Countries (A Case Study of Lahore)
Creators: name: Abdur Rahim
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: 120506 Transport Planning
subject: FOS: Social and economic geography
subject: FOS: Social and economic geography

description: Travel pattern is a widely researched topic as it highly influences several urban planning and engineering decisions. The pattern itself is impacted by several factors namely; gender difference, availability of transit facilities and their quality, users‟ perception and travel behavior etc. The impact of gender difference is believed be one of the most significant factors affecting the daily travel movement. It has been identified that females make less trips, work closer to their homes, and are more reliant on public transport than men [1, 2]. The public transport dependency, subject women to face greater ride challenges and thus efforts directed towards improvement in public transport positively affect them [3].<br>A study shows that women‟s trips mainly take place on public transport as travel on other modes such as riding motorcycle is still restricted. Additionally, there are challenges related to worries of safety, harassment, social image, and concerns related to getting to bus stops and waiting. A survey of 1,000 households in Lahore, 70% of males said they would discourage female family members from taking public wagon (a prevalent mode). Also, more than 30% of respondents felt that it was “extremely unsafe” for women to walk in their neighborhood. The existing women‟sonly services (in Lahore, three Pink Bus routes) services serve a small number of women due to their very limited coverage, restricted timings and lack of publicity. Moreover, many women in Lahore lack access to a bus with a omen‟s-only compartment [3].<br>According to World Bank, female labor force participation rate has doubled (12.51 % to 25.12%) from 1990 to 2018. However, this statistic does not classify females in their marital status and motherhood. The increasing travel movement has accentuated problems for women in developing countries; where females‟ travel is closely linked with socio-cultural norms and stereotypes set by the society. The prevalent issues are related to literacy rate and gender discrimination. <br>The young mothers, in particular, have increasing needs and demands of travel relative to unmarried, aged and married females rearing no children. The increasing travel demand of young mothers is related to trips in the form of chauffeuring to and from schools or other places, and other aggregated rational trips for household errands. The working mothers are burdened with additional trips to day care centers in addition to work, housekeeping and child rearing. The transportation of children to day care is expected to be a significant burden as it must be done in busy commuting times and within a narrow time constraint [4]. The fore-mentioned challenges impact females‟ travel pattern and restrict their choice of mode. Therefore, there is need to understand the complex trip chaining for the travel pattern of young mothers as well as other subgroups of females. It will assist in evaluating the efficient usage of resources for public transport services. The results will help to suggest feasible transport interventions that can improve females‟ travel pattern.