Mobility of care in daily trip chaining: an exploratory analysis in Turin, Italy

The Mobility of Care (MoC) has been gaining increasing interest in transportation research. Previous studies have contributed to the identification of some recurring characteristics of the MoC, like its prevalence in daily mobility, gendered role, tendency to imply short and frequent trips, inclination to be performed by car or by walking, and its tendency to be organised in chains. While many of these aspects are explicitly analysed, the extent and manner in which the MoC is chained on daily basis is still under-observed. This study aims to fill this gap, by investigating the role of the MoC in daily trip chaining through an exploratory analysis of the daily routine of a sample of Turin (Italy). To this end, we first establish a set of activity, trip-segment, trip-chain and tour categories based on previous literature. Then, we define an approach to trip-chaining analysis focused on the MoC. This includes descriptive statistics and Multiple Correspondence Analyses to reveal potential relationships between activity-travel patterns and sociodemographic, geographic and travel traits. Results reveal that over 40% of daily tours include at least one care activity. About 65% of these have a simple primary conformation (home-care-home), 25% show a complex trip-chaining pattern (e.g. home-work-care-home), while 10% are simple secondary tours performed before or after another home-based tour (e.g. home-work-home-care-home). Simple tours are typically associated with females and unemployed older people living in small households, people residing in the belt area, and people mainly travelling by transit or car. Complex tours with chains are instead especially linked to employed (male) adults in larger households, people living in the city centre and urban area, and people mostly traveling by car. These results provide novel details on how the MoC is chained within daily routines, enriching our understanding of its potential influence on daily activity-travel patterns.