Access to the city: transport, urban form and social exclusion in Sao Paulo, Mumbai and Istanbul

By Philipp Rode, Jens Kandt and Karl Baker

Socio-spatial segregation of cities and inadequate urban transport provision are frequently pointed as a major barriers for improving urban livelihood conditions for disadvantaged groups, particularly in the developing world. A number of recent studies draw attention to the links between transport accessibility and urban poverty by examining differences in travel behaviour across different income groups.  There is little research, however, that adopts a consistent methodology across a range of cities, allowing for comparison of urban spatial structure and transport provision and its impact on the distribution of accessibility among different socio-economic groups.  Based on representative household surveys, this study analyses and compares accessibility levels across different socio-economic groups in three developing world megacities and their metropolitan regions; Istanbul, Sao Paulo and Mumbai.