Understanding mobility inequality: A socio-spatial approach to analyse transport and land use in Southeast Asian metropolitan cities

In the rapidly urbanising Southeast Asian metropolitan cities, access to key socio-economic functions such as jobs, education, and healthcare are disproportionately distributed across income groups and gender. In regions where walking is associated with low socio-economic status, those without or have restricted access to private motorised vehicles (i.e. captive pedestrians) are marginalised in a car-oriented society. Differences in the ability and capacity to move is referred to as mobility inequality. In the context of daily travel activities, the lack of ability or difficulties in performing daily mobility can exacerbate a lack of access to socio-economic opportunities. For understanding mobility inequality, socio-spatial insights can provide insights as people conform to certain social values and exhibit particular spatial tendencies while travelling, as manifested in their travel pattern and behaviours. The main objective of this dissertation is to provide socio-spatial insights into mobility inequality by investigating empirical cases in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur as typical representation of Southeast Asian metropolitan cities. A mixed method approach combining qualitative and quantitative methods is employed to unpack both the social and spatial dimension related to mobility. Findings from this dissertation confirm how mobility inequality is manifested in daily travel activities. Social practices and spatial configurations influence this manifestation in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur in the form of marginalisation of pedestrians, especially female and captive pedestrians, and private vehicle dependence. This condition occurs at both the metropolitan and the neighbourhood scales, but the mechanism of socio-spatial interplay differs across various culture and geographical contexts