01089756

Component

In Nairobi, Kenya, most of the poor cannot afford any of the motorized transport options in the city. This leaves them with no option but to walk, and severely limits the physical area they can easily access. This study empirically explores the travel "choices" of Nairobi's slum residents using a large household survey dataset collected by the World Bank in 2004. We find that motorized public transport is used by only 38 percent of households, 45 percent of adults who work outside their home settlement, and 9 percent of children who attend school outside their settlement. As expected, we find that poverty level is an important determinant of motorized transport use for women, men, and children. Surprisingly, we find that gender is at least as important as poverty in determining motorized transport use among the adults in this population. This discrepancy between women's and men's travel is not fully accounted for by gender differences in the duties of child rearing. It persists even among childless adults. We conclude that policies aiming to improve transport access and affordability is unlikely to be fully effective if the target population is seen as the "extreme poor" as a single group. Women, men, and children in this population each face distinct barriers to access, and the most effective transport policies to improve access for this population will take these into account.

01084478

08-0038

English

15p

2008

Transportation Research Board 87th Annual Meeting

DVD

Figures (1) ; References; Tables (6)

Alternatives analysis; Low income groups; Public transit; Transportation policy; Travel surveys

Affordability

Nairobi (Kenya)

Policy; Public Transportation; Society

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2008 Paper #08-0038

TRIS, TRB

Jan 29 2008 2:26PM