Travel behaviour variations between urban and rural areas of Pakistan

• Main Author: Muhammad Adeel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Università di Napoli Federico II 2018-06-01
• Series: TeMA: Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment
• Subjects: Pakistan; travel behavior; time use; gender
• Online Access: http://www.tema.unina.it/index.php/tema/article/view/5456

This paper examines the 2007 national time use survey to report the degree to which the national travel behaviour varies between urban and rural of Pakistan and how it is shaped by the local socioeconomic and individual characteristics in these areas. At the national level, walking remains the dominant mode of daily mobility across the country. However, the daily trip rate, mode choice and travel durations vary significantly across both geographies. Urban residents are slightly less mobile and exhibits greater use of personal automobile than rural residents. These differences become more pronounced across gender. There exists slight local regional variation across provinces which are closely related to the local social and spatial drivers of mobility. The paper speculates that the rural travel differences are mainly caused by difference in income levels. Urban built environment is more conducive to motorized mobility which results in greater automobile reliance in cities, particularly for women. Social and cultural environment also plays potentially significant and spatially explicit role which remains under addressed and calls for further research.