Revealing the Complex Dynamics of Social Disparities in Personal Transit Availability Considering Human Mobility and Neighborhood Effect Averaging

Jiannan Cai and Mei-Po Kwan

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2025, vol. 115, issue 3, 620-639

Abstract: Research on inequalities in transit availability typically focuses on fixed residential neighborhoods, ignoring the dynamic exposure caused by people’s daily mobility. In addition, the neighborhood effect averaging problem (NEAP), as a major methodological issue in mobility-dependent exposures, could lead to erroneous conclusions on the assessments of personal transit availability and social disparities. To address these limitations, this study uses large-scale travel survey data of 26,626 participants in the Chicago Metropolitan Area to evaluate personal transit availability in people’s daily lives and examine the dynamic social disparities across varying geographic contexts by considering human mobility and the NEAP. For the first time, we observe the presence of the NEAP in personal transit availability: Individual transit availability tends toward the average level of the study area when people’s daily mobility is considered. We also find that personal transit availability experienced by different social groups might exhibit varying extents of neighborhood effect averaging owing to differences in their mobility levels. This further contributes to the complex dynamics of social disparities in transit availability during their daily mobility, with some residential disparities being exacerbated (e.g., between gender groups, African American and White individuals), some maintained (e.g., between age groups, low- and middle-income groups, employed and unemployed individuals, Asian and White individuals), and some changing direction (e.g., between high- and middle-income groups). Our findings emphasize the importance of considering human mobility and the NEAP in mobility-dependent environmental inequality research and the formulation of related policies.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2024.2447504

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