Women’s urban mobility in Tunisian Sahel : Analysis on local and regional scales

Since the 1970s, the duality of gender and urban mobility has been the focus of academic research on the position of women in the modern transport system. However, the scope of the study was clearly limited to developed countries and neglected the scope of this topic for countries in the South. The present work attempts to close this gap by analyzing the mobility behavior of women in the Tunisian Sahel and focusing on the hierarchy of daily travel between the two genders by dividing the region into four groups, according to the regional development level of its 40 delegations. Based on a transport survey conducted in 2019 for 2021 people, our analysis first examines the spatial variability between the four delegation groups, focusing on daily travel rates and the classic trinomial of distance, time, and costs, which are then subjected to a comparative reading of mobility practices between women and men in the region. Finally, we focus on the spatial interaction between the different delegations for both genders by measuring an interaction intensity index. The results of our analysis shed light on significant differences between the two genders and confirm the vulnerability of women in terms of mobility in the Tunisian Sahel, with significant differences in favor of the best-equipped delegations.