Ideology Driven Commuting Choices in Times of Protests: Social Turmoil and Cycling Boost in Santiago de Chile

Resumen

Área Temática: Accesibilidad y Movilidad

In contexts of crisis, such as the social turmoil occurring in 2019 in Santiago de Chile or the COVID pandemia around the world, mobility patterns are altered inducing modal shifts that may sustain over time (Teixeira & Lopes, 2020).

In October of 2019, a total of 20 metro stations were set on fire and 41 were somehow vandalized (Metro de Santiago, 2019). The following months Santiago hosted several demonstrations in different formats across the city, which significantly altered the mobility patterns among the population. Few studies have addressed this case (Díaz Pabón & Palacio Ludeña, 2021; Gonzalez & Morán, 2020) but none of them from the perspective of travel behavior and transport mode choice. On the other hand, there are several studies from the global north that studied the effects of public transport disruptions on travel behavior (Currie & Muir, 2017; Fuller et al., 2019; Saberi et al., 2018; van Exel & Rietveld, 2001), although none of them are related to social unrest scenarios that included riots, road blockages or other kinds of vandalism.

To assess the effect of the social turmoil on increasing cycling demand, we collected data from two sources. First, we conducted a revealed preferences survey distributed through social media, collecting 1209 responses. Second, we carried out bicycle flow measurements at four high-demand points, two months before and two weeks after the metro stations caught fire. The former exhibited a two fold increase in bicycle usage, and the latter also showed a 136% increment.

This research aims to understand who these new cyclists are and which characteristics they have in common. To achieve this, we propose a nested logit model to estimate, first, the probability of switching transport mode after the social turmoil occurred and to choose, second, a particular mode to move after -and during- the crisis. Since the demonstrations and riots are motivated by political reasons, we included a latent variable in the model to evaluate the effect of the individual’s political stance and the level of engagement with the social movement, on the modal decision.

The results suggest that people who changed to the bicycle are mainly men, young professionals, whose trip distance is rather short. Conversely, those who switched to driving seem to be wealthy, more conservative, and politically against the social movement. We consider that these findings are useful to acknowledge the effect of this type of disruptions in mobility patterns and, furthermore, to frame a set of interventions that could encourage more people to take advantage of the crisis as an opportunity to change their transportation habits towards more sustainable forms of mobility.

Palabras clave: Social Turmoil, Urban Cycling, Cycling Demand, Latent Variables

References:

• Currie, G., & Muir, C. (2017). Understanding passenger perceptions and behaviors during unplanned rail disruptions. Transportation Research Procedia, 25, 4392-4402. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trpro.2017.05.322
• Díaz Pabón, F. A., & Palacio Ludeña, M. G. (2021). Inequality and the socioeconomic dimensions of mobility in protests: The cases of Quito and Santiago. Global Policy, 12, 78-90.
• Fuller, D., Luan, H., Buote, R., & Auchincloss, A. H. (2019). Impact of a public transit strike on public bicycle share use: An interrupted time series natural experiment study. Journal of Transport & Health, 13, 137-142.
• Gonzalez, R., & Morán, C. L. F. (2020). The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: A first look at their causes and participants. International Journal of Sociology, 50(3), 227-235.
• Metro de Santiago (20 de octubre de 2019). Balance daños 19 de octubre 2019. Recuperado de: https://www.metro.cl/noticias/balance-danos-19-de-octubre-2019 
• Saberi, M., Ghamami, M., Gu, Y., Shojaei, M. H. (Sam), & Fishman, E. (2018). Understanding the impacts of a public transit disruption on bicycle sharing mobility patterns: A case of Tube strike in London. Journal of Transport Geography, 66, 154-166.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2017.11.018
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