Does Public Transport Planning Consider Mobility of Care? A Critical Policy Review of Toronto, Canada
, Emily Grisé 3, Geneviève Boisjoly 4 and Léa Ravensbergen 1,*
Joseph Rodriguez
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors might consider including a paragraph (and a map) that provides an overview of the unique/distinct features of Toronto transit system and urban/suburban land use. Where are the hospitals, schools, grocery stores located in the metropolitan area and how are they well or inadequately served by transit? Where are the working class and middle/upper class residential districts located vis a vis these institutions that families, children and the elderly must visit? I'm also curious as to the major transit issues and concerns in the city/suburbs, ie traffic, pollution, sprawl, service intervals, where transit is inadequate and freeways predominate.
Author Response
Thank you for this comment. We agree that a map of Toronto with key contextual information would be very helpful to our readers. In the revised version, we have added more contextual information on Toronto’s income and transport infrastructure including a map that illustrates major transportation features and income. Please see Section 3.1 on p. 4.
We did not include mobility of care destinations, though we would have liked to, for two reasons. First, mobility of care databases do not currently exist. We made one for past work focusing on a different city, and it took ample time to compile. Second, given how many care destinations exist in Toronto (e.g., all grocery stores, health clinics, schools, etc.) we worried the map would be too difficult to read as there would be too many points of interest. We hope the additional contextual information helps the reader better understand Toronto’s geography regarding major transportation infrastructure and income.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe document focuses on a very current topic.
It is recommended to follow the journal template, avoiding the subdivision of the abstract into subparagraphs.
In the title, it is recommended to include a reference to the case study analyzed
In the introductory part, the analysis of travel for care should be better emphasized, introducing more bibliographical references and paying attention to critical issues such as questions of gender equity and social inclusion.
It is therefore recommended to read the following research works
1) Palm, M. (2025). Rethinking ‘discretionary’travel: The impact of night and evening shift work on social exclusion and mobilities of care. Travel Behaviour and Society, 40, 101030.
2) Zhao, D., Chai, S., Gao, T., Li, J., & Zhou, C. (2023). Physical mobility, social isolation and cognitive function: are there really gender differences?. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 31(9), 726-736.
3) Fazia, C., Campisi, T., Bellamacina, D., & Catania, G. F. G. (2023, June). Urban and Social Policies: Gender Gap for the Borderless Cities. In International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications (pp. 133-146). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
In the methodological part, the data acquisition phase should be better emphasized and in the discussion of the results, the methodological replicability to other contexts such as Asia or Europe should be specified
The insertion of references in the text must follow the journal template.
Figure 1 must be inserted in high resolution and with a greater text height
All tables must be inserted respecting the journal template.
It is advisable to underline the choice of the case study carefully motivating the choice
In the final part it is not clear how the results obtained from the research can improve the strategies of planning and designing movements and spaces as well as how they can help policy makers to improve strategies
What are the limitations of this research?
What are the potential future developments?
In some parts of the text it is not clear whether the research is focused on a critical analysis or on the construction of a new methodology. It is requested to clarify this.
The English could be improved to more clearly express the research.
Author Response
Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. We agree that mobility of care is a very timely topic.
In response to your comment on following the journal templates, we have removed the subparagraph subdivisions of the abstract (though we did follow the article template when we added those), and changed the references (e.g., changed parentheses to square brackets, and fixed the reference list) and tables (e.g., proper font, bold, and alignment) to conform to the journal template. A higher resolution Figure 1 has also been included. We have also added the study’s context (Toronto) to the title (which now reads: Does Public Transport Planning Consider Mobility of Care? A Critical Policy Review of Toronto, Canada). Further, there is now more context on this study site in response to a comment made by reviewer #1. Please see section 3.1 on p. 4.
We appreciate the suggested readings to emphasise larger questions of gender equity and social inclusion. We have incorporated the Palm (2025) and Fazia et al. (2023) article in the revised manuscript, in relation to social inclusion and gender equity. Please see p. 2 lines, 53-55: “Further, mobility of care trips are important, as they are connected to critical issues including gender equity (3, 11) and social inclusion (12).”. We did not incorporate the Zhao et al. article, as it focuses on the relationship between social isolation, physical functioning, and cognitive function. We found its focus to be too far removed from mobility of care or transport planning.
In terms of methodology, we agree that more detail on data acquisition was needed. We have therefore added more writing on pages 5 lines 174-184:
“The search reported in the original study [30] was updated, this time focusing on the TTC. Policy documents were defined as formal documents from the TTC which outline the rules, regulations, or goals of the agency. Any policy not written by the TTC was excluded. The search took place in May 2024. When an updated version of a policy identified in the original study [30] existed, the newest version was included in the analysis; older versions were not in-cluded. Further, a snowball method was employed, whereby careful attention was given to the policy documents referenced in policies. Specifically, when a policy document mentioned another policy document that could be of interest, this new document was identified and considered for inclusion. Finally, general Google searches were performed to identify any other publicly available policy document that might have been missed. “
We have also added a comment about the need to replicate this study in other contexts in the discussion. Please see p. 13, lines 455-458:
“We recommend others replicate this analysis in other contexts, both across Canada and internationally. To do so, careful attention to local context is required to ensure all policies are identified and included in the analysis.”
The goal of this research is to present a critical policy review focused on how a transit agency (the TTC) considers mobility of care. It is not to develop a new methodology. This is emphasised in the revised manuscript in the introduction (on p. 2 lines 58-59: “The goal of the review is to assess the ways in which mobility of care trips are currently considered in policies to propose recommendations for more inclusive transit planning”), materials and methods (p. 4 lines 151-152: “This critical policy review extends a broader analysis focused on women’s public transportation needs [30] by focusing explicitly on mobility of care”) and in the conclusion (see p. 14 lines 472-473: “This critical policy review found that transit policies tend to emphasize ‘compulsory mobility’, which does not consider mobility of care as compulsory.”)
Regarding your comment about policy implications of this research, we have clearly outlined four preliminary recommendations for public transportation agencies on how to incorporate mobility of care in transit policy moving forward. These are all informed from the results of this study. Please see the four sub-sections of the conclusion.
The Limitations and areas for potential future research can also now be found in the revised manuscript on p. 13-14, lines 453-468:
“This study is not without its limitations. Due to the in-depth nature of the analysis of the policy documents, only one transit agency and its most recent documents were included. It is possible that other contexts consider mobility of care more directly. We recommend others replicate this analysis in other contexts, both across Canada and internationally. To do so, careful attention to local context is required to ensure all policies are identified and included in the analysis. Further, the search took place in the summer of 2024. Other documents may have been made available for public consumption since the original search. Given the trend for more consideration of care in recent years, potentially since the COVID-19 pandemic, it is possible that care trips are more directly considered in more recent policy documents. Future research could expand this study by considering other geographic contexts or timeframes. Future work could also explore the user’s perspectives of barriers to public transport use for mobility of care and examine if the policies identified herein that may indirectly facilitate care trips do so. For instance, researchers could in-vestigate whether policies to increase accessibility for people with disabilities (such as ramps and elevators) do, indeed, help caregivers (for instance travelling with trollers or groceries).”
Finally, we have also given the manuscript a careful editorial review to ensure the English is written clearly.
We would like to thank you for these helpful suggestions, as we believe they have resulted in a clearer and more impactful manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsTitle of paper could be modified becouse there is no sufficient discussion on "gender biases".
No reservations about the authors' methodological approach.
The only concern is the title of the article, and that should be modified. The content of the article does not prove that there is a problem of gender bias in transport policy. The issue of care mobility has so far been little researched, especially by gender. The very definition of the concept implies that it includes both mandatory and optional transport needs, so new research techniques for this type of mobility and new approaches in transport planning are needed. Above all, it is important to note the difference in the scale of mobility needs of care reported by women and men in order to speak of a gender bias in transport planning. The fact that existing transport policy documents do not refer to mobility needs of care by gender does not prove that there is a gender bias.
Author Response
Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. We are glad to hear you are content with the paper’s methodological approach.
We appreciate your comments on our title and agree stating there is a bias is unjustified. As such, we have toned down the claims made in the title, which now reads: Does Public Transport Planning Consider Mobility of Care? A Critical Policy Review of Toronto, Canada.
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors emphasize mobility of care. These routes need to be taken into account in transport planning as they represent approximately 1/3 of the total. The authors found that there is a lack of mention of care mobility in the documents. It will be necessary to define how to take these routes into account in transport planning. It should also be noted that care mobility is often preferred by women and they mostly use public transport for this purpose.
Author Response
Thank you for providing comments on our paper. We agree with your summary of the paper. We also agree it is necessary to illustrate how to account for mobility of care in transport planning. Given that the aim of this policy review was to identify the extent to which the TTC considers mobility of care, we only feel confident making preliminary suggestions on how agencies should take this type of travel into consideration. We do so in the conclusion, where we put forth four specific recommendations (please see page 14).
It is true that mobility of care is more frequently completed by women who are also more frequent transit users. This was stated in the literature review (e.g., see p. 3 line 98 “Given that women complete the bulk of mobility of care.”, and lines 114-115 “In line with trends for all trips, women use public transport to complete care trips more than men regardless of income”). However, we agree that this is important to emphasize and have therefore also reiterated these points in the conclusion. Please see p. 14 lines 476-478: “However, mobility of care comprises a significant proportion of people’s daily travel, especially for women [4, 7-8]. Further, people appear to be less likely to use transit for these trips, even women who are more frequent transit users [7].”. We thank you for this suggestion, as we feel the edit made improves the paper.
