Travel Behaviour of Women in Delhi-Pre and During-Covid Scenario

Women in developing countries face a number of constraints that limit their ability to travel between home and work like income and job constraints, domestic and family responsibilities, and labour market constraint travel patterns of working women. From gender-oriented transport issue, women face inequities in terms of intra-household allocation of transport tasks and resources. COVID -19 pandemic has also severely impacted mobility levels of urban context across the globe. Very limited research has been carried out to assess the impact of pandemic on women’s mobility levels. This paper is one such attempt to assess the mobility patterns of women before COVID-19 and during COVID-19 in case city—Delhi. It is observed from this study that mobility characteristics of trip performed by women were significantly different pre as well as throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Factor analysis technique used for analysing the parameters having an impact on mode choice pre and during the pandemic. Major shift from public transportation to private transportation and nonmotorised modes was observed. Women prioritised pandemic-related concerns over other concerns when selecting a mode for their commute during COVID-19 pandemic. Gender, car/vehicle ownership, occupation, distance travelled, trip purpose, and pandemic-related concerned aspects were observed as underlying factors of mode choice during COVID-19.