Gender disparities in multimodal travel Attitudes, Behavior, and satisfaction

Abstract

The relationships between travel attitudes and mode choices are widely used to explain travel satisfaction as an outcome of individual decisions. However, studies analyzing gender disparities in travel satisfaction levels are still missing in literature, resulting in a dearth of knowledge about gendered aspects of travel satisfaction. This study contributes to this discernible research need by analyzing the complex interplay between attitudes, behavior, and travel satisfaction. The extent of travel mode consonance (i.e., individuals travelling in their preferred modes) and dissonance (i.e., individuals travelling in a non-preferred mode) in various multimodal travel segments are analyzed first for quantifying the links between attitudes and behavior. Subsequently, gender disparities in travel satisfaction levels are assessed using gap hypothesis tests. The findings from this study analysing 897 responses from Delhi, India, provide a developing-country perspective to the emerging international research on travel satisfaction and create an evidence base for decreasing gender disparities in the urban mobility. Our results indicated that multimodal choices are strongly linked to mode specific attitudes and most of the consonant travellers fall under car users and most of the dissonant travellers come under public transport. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd