Gender differentials in travel pattern – The case of a mid-sized city, Rajkot, India

• We have analysed travel pattern data disaggregated by sex and income class.
• Gender and income differential existing in a mid-sized city with small trip lengths.
• Importance of NMT as mode by women and the poor.

This paper is at the conjunction of arguments for gender equity in transport services on one hand and need to move towards low carbon transport on the other in a developing country city. The case study city, Rajkot, a mid-sized Indian city with mixed land use and limited public transport at the time of this study, has short trip lengths and low trip rates. But, even in this city there is gender disparity in travel pattern. Thus, trip rates and trip lengths of women in the city in each of the income group are lower than that of their male counter parts. With the increase in income, both, the trip rates and lengths increase, but, the increase is higher for men than for women. While the large proportions of women in each income group walk, that among the lowest income group walking is the predominant mode, as they are ‘no-choice’ or ‘forced’ walkers. With the increase in household income, women tend to shift to para-transit and men to personal motorized transport. If sustainability arguments or climate policies are to target retaining the current low ecological footprint of the women as one of the strategies, it needs to cater to expansion of their mobility while improving infrastructure to support the same.