Factors affecting the daily travel frequency of low-income residents in the Tunisian Sahel region: An analysis with Geographically Weighted Regression

Although global interest in transport equity is rising, research on low-income populations’ urban mobility remains overwhelmingly biased toward developed nations. In the Global South, such studies are still limited and mainly address public transport and infrastructure deficiencies. This paper seeks to fill this knowledge gap by examining the main factors influencing daily trip frequency of low-income individuals in Tunisia, accounting for both socio-economic conditions and spatial heterogeneity in mobility. The work aims to contribute to the discourse on the mobility among low-income individuals and the design of shape pro-poor transport policies in comparable contexts. The study was conducted in the Tunisian Sahel region, and data from 1,191 low-income individuals were collected through a household survey administered, in 2019, to all 40 delegations in the region. We first developed a Poisson Regression to gain initial insights into the relation between trip frequency and a combination of various factors across the study area. Next, we used a Geographically Weighted Regression to examine the complexity of its local variations. The results revealed a wide range of factors influencing the mobility of low-income Sahelians, as well as significant spatial variability among the 40 delegations of the region. The daily trips frequency of this demographic seems to be determined by a combination of their socio-demographic and household characteristics, their mobility features, and their perceptions of the particulars of the available transportation options determined by their perceptions. Our findings provided actionable multi-level insights and visual evidence to shape inclusive transport policies in the Tunisian Sahel region.