# Gender gaps in urban mobility

## TL;DR

This study analyzes gender differences in urban mobility in Santiago, Chile, revealing that women move less than men and that mobility gaps are linked to socio-economic factors and transportation access, informing more inclusive urban planning.

## Contribution

The paper combines diverse datasets, including telecom and open data, to provide a comprehensive gendered analysis of urban mobility patterns in Santiago.

## Key findings

- Women have lower mobility and visit fewer locations than men.
- Higher mobility gaps correlate with lower income and limited transportation options.
- Results inform policies for gender-inclusive transportation planning.

## Abstract

The use of public transportation or simply moving about in streets are gendered issues. Women and girls often engage in multi-purpose, multi-stop trips in order to do household chores, work, and study ('trip chaining'). Women-headed households are often more prominent in urban settings and they tend to work more in low-paid/informal jobs than men, with limited access to transportation subsidies. Here we present recent results on urban mobility from a gendered perspective by uniquely combining a wide range of datasets, including commercial sources of telecom and open data. We explored urban mobility of women and men in the greater metropolitan area of Santiago, Chile, by analyzing the mobility traces extracted from the Call Detail Records (CDRs) of a large cohort of anonymized mobile phone users over a period of 3 months. We find that, taking into account the differences in users' calling behaviors, women move less than men, visiting less unique locations and distributing their time less equally among such locations. By mapping gender differences in mobility over the 52 comunas of Santiago, we find a higher mobility gap to be correlated with socio-economic indicators, such as a lower average income, and with the lack of public and private transportation options. Such results provide new insights for policymakers to design more gender inclusive transportation plans in the city of Santiago.