Exploring the impact of gender in travel behaviour: A case study of suburban commuters in Montreal

Transportation literature suggests that men and women have different characteristics with respect to commuting patterns, as well as with respect to their propensity to switch between travel options. In North America, women are expected to have an increasing impact on travel demand. As such, differences in female responses to travel demand management strategies are likely to become increasingly important as governments try to curtail travel demand in the future. This paper uses a 1994 stated preference (SP) survey of suburban commuters in Montreal to: determine whether there is evidence for differences between men and women in the factors that affect work trip choices; quantify those differences; and suggest what these differences imply for travel demand management in the future in Montreal. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows. First, women and men should be modeled separately with respect to work trip mode choice. Second, there are three main differences that appear from the econometric models: women are less likely to choose public transit than men; women are more likely to choose to rideshare; and women are less time sensitive when it comes to commuting than men are.