Gender and households’ vehicle ownership and usage behavior in a developing city

Abstract

In Indonesia, motorcycle ownership has grown significantly compared to private car ownership. Nowadays, using motorcycles is no longer a special privilege for men. Progressively women have started owning/riding motorcycles because of their involvement in the labor market, causing a certain level of travel needs. Although motorcycle is a promising mobility tool to fulfill their needs for travel, it is also known that women are more likely to face with driving difficulties that potentially cause accidents, while public transport and paratransit may be less safe. Accordingly, there is a possibility that women just use motorcycle because there are no alternatives that meet their needs for safety travel. However, little has been done with respect to women issues in transportation in developing countries. To fill in this gap, this study attempts to first clarify the influence of gender on households’ decisions about vehicle ownership and usage, and then to examine the gender differences in the usage of motorcycle for their daily lives. In this study, a questionnaire survey data collected in JABODETABEK area of Indonesia in January 2010 is used. In the survey, respondents were asked to answer their household vehicle ownership and usage, satisfaction level towards paratransit, household income, residential attributes, and individual attributes. We first apply an aggregate analysis to explore the gender differences in motorcycle ownership and usage. Then, we develop an ordered probit model to capture the impa cts of satisfaction level towards paratransit on motorcycle usage with taking into account gender differences as well as trip purpose differences. We hypothesize that women who don’t satisfy with the safety of paratransit tend to use motorcycle. The empirical results partly support our hypothesis: the lower satisfaction for Ojek security has a negative impact on their motorcycle usage, when participating in shopping activities. Such information could be useful for supporting women’s mobility in developing cities by properly controlling the ever-increasing motorcycle ownership.