Understanding Urban-Rural Disparities in Mobility Inefficiency for Colombia, Mexico, and India

Abstract: Rural and urban areas exhibit distinct mobility patterns, yet a systematic understanding of how these trends differ across regions and contexts remains underexplored. By using origin-destination matrices from Location-Based Services data in Colombia, India, and Mexico, we delineate urban and rural boundaries through network percolation, reducing reliance on conventional urbanisation metrics tied to the built environment. We gauge mobility dynamics across regions developing a measure for routing inefficiency, which measures how much longer empirical trips are than their optimal shortest path. Our findings reveal that rural areas experience greater inefficiencies, particularly for longer trips made later in the day. At the urban level, we determine the misalignment between urban mobility efficiency and public transit accessibility, by measuring the difference between their respective vector fields. We observe that most cities experience misalignment during regular commuting hours, with Colombian cities exhibiting particularly high alignment. Meanwhile, mobility inefficiency in rural areas are associated with their orientation around their most proximate city. City-level analyses uncover disparities in the functions of rural and urban areas, with significant variations between weekdays and weekends, reflecting distinct roles in commuting and access to services. These findings highlight the importance of tailored, context-sensitive approaches to improving connectivity and reducing disparities. This study offers new insights into the spatial and temporal dynamics of mobility inefficiency, contributing to equitable regional planning and sustainable mobility solutions.