High mobility lifestyles: Unpacking travel behavior in Accra's rapidly expanding periphery
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Date
2024
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Cities
Abstract
This paper explores everyday travel behavior among urbanites in Accra's periphery and unpacks how travel
choices and preferences are conditioned and constrained in a context of rapid urban expansion, unregulated
residential sprawl, infrastructural deficits, congestion and changing socio-economic conditions. The paper draws
on qualitative interviews (n = 48) and a travel survey (n = 2107) targeting economically active adults residing in
peripheral neighborhoods. Their travel behavior is characterized by a high proportion of adults who regularly
travel outside their neighborhoods, over relatively long distances (10+ km) and mainly using motorized
transport. The paper proposes “high mobility lifestyles” as a metaphor to capture key aspects of travel behavior
in the peripheries and explores how travelers navigate the opportunities and constraints associated with living in
the peripheries. As a unique feature, spatially explicit destination data are used to map the predominant desti
nations and long distances travelled from Accra's peripheral neighborhoods. The research illuminates how
infrastructural deficits, long distances, severe congestion and rising transport costs combine to make high
mobility lifestyles exceedingly strenuous, costly, and time-consuming. Ultimately, in-depth understanding of
travel behavior, embedded in contextual conditions, can provide insights on how travel choices may be changed
and how transport, systems may be made more sustainable and inclusive.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Travel behavior, Mobility, Urban transport