People with disabilities and transit use: Findings from nationwide data in India

The travel behaviour of people with disabilities (PWDs) has been observed to differ from that of people without disabilities despite having similar needs and wants. PWDs encounter various obstacles restricting their mobility and ability to participate in activities. In this paper, we use a large nationwide dataset covering 102,977 PWDs to understand transit usage and barriers faced by PWDs while travelling at disaggregate and aggregate levels. The analysis comprises five different models: binary logit and multinomial logit at the disaggregate level, ordinary least square regression, spatial lag model, and spatial error model at the aggregate level. Findings reveal that transit use is significantly low among female PWDs, PWDs who lost work, PWDs who need a caregiver, and regions with a high percentage of workers. It is also observed that the level of marginalised populations in a region consistently shows a negative impact on public transport usage across most disabilities.