Structural Equations Model of the Transport Habitus in Mexico City during the COVID-19 Era

Introduction

In the context of climate change and sustainable development, public transport turns out to be an extremely important factor when evaluating cities in terms of mobility and carbon emissions. In this sense, public policies have been aimed at strengthening green spaces, transport efficiency and ecological culture [1]. In this way, the subsidy programs have become essential to pay for the upgrade of the units or at least their conversion in order to reduce their carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Regarding ecological culture, urban governments have promoted  the use of ecological or zero-emission transport in order to reduce car use and generate mobility spaces that deconcentrate emissions at peak traffic hours [2]. A third strategy is to create living spaces and rescue and leisure where pedestrians take ownership of bikeways or Ecovías in order to contribute to the reduction of air pollution and generate an environmental culture.

However, the interrelation between users and authorities, pedestrians and motorists, seems to show that there is a deep socio-political complexity which would be a barrier to the implementation of policies and programs aimed at the sustainability of public transport. This is so because the distrust of citizens towards their authorities is embedded in perceptions of risk, insecurity and defenselessness  that later translate into practical mobility actions accompanied by stress; depersonalization, fatigue, frustration, anger, fear or anger [3].

These are mobility habits which emerge as responses to a public transport system perceived as inefficient, insecure and uncertain by users who perceive themselves as vulnerable, excluded or marginalized when they move from the periphery to the centrality urban [4]. The habitus mobility only explain the emergence of emotions, perceptions and actions of dissatisfaction that users develop to a certain system for public policies that although conform to international standards of quality of service, do not consider the needs, expectative and user demands and that instead of a habitus of sustainability indicated by civility, courtesy or optimization, conflicts arise from which it is possible to observe habitus of mobility indicated by accidents, aggressions, insults or abuse [5].

For this reason, it is essential to make explicit the  mobility  habits  that users in the periphery manifest on their journey towards centrality [6].  In this sense, the objective of this work is to contrast the hypothesis according to which users who move from the metropolitan area and / or conurbation to the center of cities interrelate with obstacles and barriers that prevent them from developing a habitus of sustainability according to the Sustainable Development guidelines, their rights to the city and socio-political culture with civic values.

The ecocity is multidimensional. It has been understood as an economic, political and social system to reduce the ecological footprint of previous generations in reference to the capacities of previous  generations, a space limited to one million inhabitants [7], whose activities are agriculture and industry depending on the availability of resources [8], although conflict scenario [9] recycling is seen as its main development tool [10].

The concept of eco-city is related to others of a socio- historical nature. In addition to the categories of freedoms, capacities, responsibilities,  habitus, capitals, fields and spatialities, the concepts of governance [11], segregation [12], sustainability [13], centrality [14], inclusion [15], periphery [16] and surplus value [17] will allow conceptualizing the problem of scarcity, marketcracy and shortage in the study area [12].

If the concepts put forward are considered, an  eco- city- oriented governance system is opposed to segregation via the relocation  of social sectors from  the naturalization of their exclusion, but is closer to local development since the term sustainability incorporates the system of government as the rector of ecocity resources and services [12].

Rather, a system of governance is developed in small localities such as the neighborhood or the periphery until it extends to the center of the city.  This is how the  eco- city indicators would be those related to sustainability and inclusion. In this sense, studies on sustainability and eco-city projects seem to demonstrate the viability of the terms based on heterogeneous indicators [8].

The State of Mexico’s fundamental principle is to move a social labor sector from the preferred to the capital of the country. This implies the emergence of speeches about the quality of the service that are the subject of public debate given the increase in accidents and rates.  In this sense, the symbols and meanings disseminated in the users of the public network are reinterpreted and observable in lifestyles (mobility) that differentiate them from other labor sectors.  These are inherited and learned provisions from which the use of transport is decided and with it its impact on the environment and the health of the inhabitants of the metropolis [16, 17].

It is estimated that in the megaurban the 2.5 micrometer particle norm is exceeded by up to 30% during a period of 24 continuous hours. This implies effects on respiratory and visual health that impact the discourses around concessioned transport, however the use of units could be influenced by their cost, speed or safety [18].

For this reason, it is necessary to analyze the provisions around the public transport service to later understand the logic of mobility among users of the State of Mexico in reference to the spaces where they are concentrated in the federal capital [14].

However, habitus are dimensions of daily practices that define them, but not directly, but from the generation of freedoms and opportunities is that practical or discursive skills make it possible for us to observe such dispositions [19]. This means that the fields of interaction are building habitus as if they were empty areas that will be filled by the mobility of those who participate in concessional public transport and by their private position. In this regard, the recognition of the agents in this case users, diversifies the inexorable symbols peri -  urban transport use the difference  n  from other latitudes where deprives depersonalization of the greeting and customs of solidarity [20].

Theory argues that society is divided into sectors from which develop actions that encourage differences and asymmetrical relations between groups. In this sense, unlike the notion of conflict and social change, social reproduction is observed from actions that follow established patterns of behavior such as distrust of authorities and the use of public transport. The  theory of  social  reproduction  maintains that  habitus, fields and capitals explain, as a practical consciousness, the actions that groups carry out to maintain their differences and asymmetric relationships [21].

In this way, conscience objectified in dispositions is carried out in symbolic scenarios where discourses are developed that reflect the resources that an individual has in reference to a group [22]. The objectified consciousness or habitus when exercised in symbolic spaces or discursive fields of power materializes the ideas around skills, values ​ and knowledge which make up social capital since they are organized in collaborative networks [23]. Social reproduction is performed in provisions, scenarios and symbolic resources that justify and legitimize the differences between those who belong to a group with respect rulers who governed are assigned to groups [24].

In its socio-political dimension, social reproduction is observed in discourses about the relationship between State and citizenship.  In this same sense,  habitus  are the result of a socialization of power, whether authoritarian or democratic  [25]. This is how the users of  public services internalized these  discursive patterns and materialize them in actions when interacting with a public system, government institutions or political actors  [26]. If this is the case, then the users of public services internalized the responses of their groups to systems, in this case of public transport, that move them from their place of residence to their place of work, vocational training or recreation [27]. That is why the differences between the periphery users regarding the city center on observable s from indicators of their habitus mobility [21].

Now, in the framework of Sustainable Development, mainly from the context of the right to the city and its public services, public transport is subject to international standards of carbon emissions, efficiency, satisfaction and user comfort [24].

However, the Mexican political system, having built asymmetric and authoritarian relations with the social sectors, implements public policies adjusted to the requirements of environmental quality, but ignores the needs, demands and expectations of users [27]. Faced with the increase in fees, public services would be obliged to improve their quality in terms of efficiency, but this does not necessarily correspond to the perceptions of the public, since risk, uncertainty and defenselessness seem to indicate dissatisfaction  [26]. This would be observable from the speeches of the users, but their opinions are also influenced by  their experiences of use. Therefore, observe their responses in situations where their habitus mobility emerge as concrete actions involves surveys and / or interviews related to the authorities responsible for public services.

However, when transporting users from the periphery to centrality, public transport is subject to a series of internalized perceptions and emotions that would allow differentiating the same users according to their mobility trajectories, places of departure, stay and return [24]. Therefore, it is necessary to address this social differentiation that involves the use of public transport in relation to the peripheral and central areas of the cities, which are materialized in speeches and actions. Habitus of mobility explains social reproduction in four levels using public transport as two points to consider: periphery and centrality. The theory of the  habitus  of mobility argues that the interaction between agents will not only be symbolic and discursive, but practical and supportive as they are not rules or beliefs that affect a rational process, but rather are areas in which the agents They insert without being aware of it, but at the same time they are enriched by participating in a conglomeration of opinions, actions and intentions that can, at a given moment, delimit the practical world of their daily life [28].

The periurban habitus, unlike the city- dweller or campiral, comes from marginality, vulnerability and exclusion, it is against the comfort system that transport practitioners are motivated to seek employment or to replace the one they have for another that will change as long as the salary persists as a policy of control. This structure defines the practices and discourses at the same time that the latter give meaning to the mobility and fare system [11]. The structure of the periurban habitus consists of eight dimensions from which it is possible to anticipate the improvisation of actions, however it is more feasible to understand the strongholds through which inherited schemes pass that are disseminated in the users of public transport. Only eight are retaken, but they are immeasurable since new discursive structures around rates and security generate practices and symbols associated with the defense of the territory, identity or roots that are further diversified with the discrepancies between users and operators, authorities and concessionaires, transporters and drivers [29].

In sum, the  habitus  is the conservation of structures of the past that activate the present while interacting with other new forms of existence that allow them to build other systems of practical schemes which will follow the process of reproduction and production, structuring and destructuring of dispositions [13].

As an art of invention, the  habitus  finds its symbolic production no longer in personal history but in the discrepancies that determined the present state. The debate of what is inherited versus what has been learned hangs over the first years of existence, although it is not entirely certain that discursive practice is forged from experiences related to affect, the innovation of responses is a form of management that can be related to the past However, its impact is greater if it is linked to future actions since the habitus would be a kind of strategies that, although they are not instruments, fulfill the function of locating and positioning the actors in a public system such as collective transport [30].

Peri-urban actors are often excluded from the hegemonic central system and from  their own subjectivity  since the habitus built prevents them from positioning themselves on the periphery of their follies and prevents them from entering the centrality of the dominant logics.  Peri-urban users are outside the public system and of their own desires to be incorporated into the productive dynamics of symbols and meanings inherent to transition zones  [31]. The  peri- urban habitus would unfold in eight areas of mobility and passivity that involve the inclusion and exclusion of symbols associated with discursive practices related to accidents, traffic, traffic, demonstrations, transfer courtesies or added values [32].

However, it is unavoidable to assume that habitus as an innovative response to the distribution of resources is only practical awareness that does not pretend to transform what is established by social structures, rather it is an automatic reflex action from which the actors do not even know that they are, but they intuit that they could be inserted into certain spheres or dimensions to incorporate some of their aspects without trying to  do something less than occupy a void.  That is, the past does not influence more than the future in the present of the peri-urban habitus. Sociological studies of the habitus related to public transport note eight observation and analysis factors from which it is possible to infer the prevalence of a practical action of users who approach units in the periphery and go to a point of centrality. Sociological studies  of mobility  habitus  have established eight dimensions around which the emphasis on conflict anticipates probable scenarios of change [33]. It is about an appropriation of space through the intensive and / or daily use of public transport [34]. In this sense, the purchase of products not only indicates that the system is an outpatient shopping center but is also a scenario of consumer protection in terms of their satisfaction and comfort [35].

Public transport is also used as an instrument for citizen mobilization and collective action [36] in which the emotions of the users contrast with the planning of the authorities [37]. This aspect has been approached from the gender perspective since public transport is confined to the particular use of the female gender in a crowded schedule [38].

However, the adjustment of the system and quality of the service is guided by principles of sustainability measured by efficiency, optimization of resources, respect for green or pedestrian spaces [39], although the subjective or social imaginary part emerges as an indicator of satisfaction and environmental quality from which public policy, subsidies and service charges are legitimized [40].

From the peri-urban habitus, traffic would be assumed as a circumstance of journeys that are of imprecise origin and therefore dispersed, or it is about emerging styles of driving that tend to an imposed and conventional regularity. It is also the case of the manifestations which we consider as an accumulation of discourses that operate in practice, although more than any other it brings with it symbols at least of anarchy [15]. That is why traffic session courtesies are another symptom of  peri-urban  habitus  that seems to show solidarity with those who travel from one direction to another, but disagree with those who only block or cross without preventing or taking responsibility for their actions [9]. Another indicator is the movement around the wheel as part of the repertoire of responses to the objective conditions of urban everyday life [7]. In the case of accidents, as established by the  urban  habitus, it is an improvised response to the safety structures that operate under the logic of prevention. The added value of peri - urban mobility is you relate or with peak times and for practical innovation to build discourses on social networks, but by the construction of peri - urban styles in which everyday life not to be missed. Although it is true that the periurban habitus is irreducible to the proposed dimensions, it is essential to observe its emergence since the design of a mobility policy would be carried out from the reactivation of the objectified sense without excluding subjective desires, but including discourses intersubjective that are gestated in the interrelation of peri- urbanity with centrality.

In short, public transport has been approached from two objective and subjective dimensions, although predominantly the questioning of public policies is built from the increase in rates and the opinions of citizens about the quality of the service. From the sociological studies of public transport, it is possible to anticipate an eight-dimensional reflective structure from which the mobility habitus can be explained. Courtesy deriving from the appropriation of space through the use of public transport, since if there is a set of actions that seek to relativize the identity of pedestrians with respect to a mobility route, then it is logical to think that coexistence is developed from norms of civility within which courtesy is a central element.

In contrast, reading supposes a rational action unmarked from a practical conscience in the particular because civility, in general, is a social dimension that contrasts with the attention of an even superfluous reading, but that for some users is a mode of appropriation of space no longer as a stage of expression of subjectivity,  but as a manifestation of habitus mobility and individual literacy of users who run an educational institution.

A consequence of the collective action that uses public transport as an instrument of mobility is agglomeration, although the labor and educational offer seem to be the causes, the agglomeration is due to a situation external to the dynamics of public transport that through filters seek to regulate flows mobility. Information policies regarding the use of the Internet and access to new technologies cause cyber use as an indicator of the mobility habitus that paradoxically adjusts the stay and trajectory of the user in the computer  centers of  the subway or shopping malls. Civility, already related to the appropriation of space, is a consequence of the common resources that the spaces through which public transport pass. Courtesy is a form of coexistence, but so are garbage collection, efficient transfer advice or the use of ecological transport. On the other hand, the transfer is indicative of a mobility habitus that develops from one end of the city to the other since it implies hours of transfer that imply constant transfers and the ability to perform the minimum of them or at least the cheapest are symptoms of a practical conscience.

In contrast, when transshipment skills have not been developed, waiting emerges as another indicator of those who only know a limited path of transfer. Lastly, food reflects a  habitus  of mobility that supposes trajectories that are higher than the average and reflects consumption styles by those who comply with a saturated work or training schedule. Courtesy, reading, agglomeration,  cyberuse, civility, transshipment, waiting and food are indicators of the habitus mobility because they are responses to programs and policies limiting public transport consisting of subsidies, confinements and filters.

Results

The normal distribution, requirement for the establishment of construct validity and internal consistency, obtained a value of 1,294 close to unity and significant (Bootstrap = 0.000).

Construct validity was established with five factors, of which only three explained more than 20% of the variance as a requirement for hypothesis testing.

The first factor related to agglomeration included items 1 to 4 explaining 28% of the variance. For its part, the feeding factor was made up of items 5 to 8, explaining 25% of the variance. While the factor allusive to civility was configured by items 9 to 16 explaining 23% of the variance.

Finally,  the  cyberuse  and engagement  factors  were configured by items 17 to 32%, explaining 14% and 10% of the variance, respectively (Tables 1 & 2).

r22 I’ve taken the bus from your base to your destination 3.05 0.84 1.32 0.72 0.326 r23 I have ridden the minibus late into the night 3.84 0.91 1.64 0.73 0.346 r24 I have waited for public transport before it starts to circulate 3.31 0.88 1.57 0.73 0.332 r25 While I ride the subway, I review my class notes 3.2 0.95 1.42 0.75 0.326 r26 I prepare for exams on the way to school 3.22 0.89 1.55 0.78 0.384 r27 I do my homework while on the subway 3.04 0.97 1.23 0.79 0.331 r28 I do schoolwork during my ride on the minibus 3.64 0.95 1.25 0.74 0.368 r29 My sense of punctuality forces me to take different routes to be on time 3.46 0.89 1.36 0.72 0.346 r30 My schedule of activities allows me to travel on different routes 3.15 0.88 1.35 0.78 0.306

The periurban habitus seems to be interwoven between traffic and demonstrations (Φ = 0.555) as opposing elements that involve road safety with urban mobility and the innovations that emerge from them. Such a contradiction is also observed in the relationship between demonstrations and traffic courtesies (Φ =  0.676) as well as with wheel turn travel (Φ = 0.328). These are provisions that coexist in response to mobility problems, but their belonging to other areas suggests that the urban habitus passes through them.

Only in the case of accidents with pedestrian movement (Φ = 0.388) is there a kind of causality, although the peri- urban  habitus  moves away from all prevention in this relationship, it seems that it activates a logic of self-care on the part of the actors.  Finally, the added value in peak hours (Φ = 0.710) also suggests that there are concomitant dimensions to the improve of peri-urban mobility.

Source: Elaborated with data study; F1 = Agglomeration, F2 = Food, F3 = Civility, F4 = Cyberuse, F5 = Commitments; * p < ,01; p < ,001; * p < ,0001 Table 2: Covariance relationships between factors.

The structure of relationships suggests axes and trajectories that can be explained from the technique of structural equations for the case of reflective relationship models. That is, each factor being related to each indicator forms an explanatory structure of the transport habitus (Figure 1).

Click to enlarge

Source: elaborated with data study; F1 = Agglomeration, F2 = Food, F3 = Civility, F4 = Cyberuse, F5 = Commitments; R = Indicator, e = Error measurement indicator,  relation between error and indicator,  relation between factor and indicator,  relation between factor. Figure 1: Structural equation modelling.

The results show that around public transport, a structure of reflective relationships is configured between five factors with respect to 30 indicators. It is an explanatory model of the subjective dimensions that transport users generate from their transfer experience and depending on the image of the destination. The adjustment and residual values ( ) 2

12,23 13 df p > ,05; GFI = ,990; CFI = ,997; RMSEA = ,007

$$ \int \chi^ {2} = 1 2, 2 3 (1 3 \mathrm {d f}) \mathrm {p} >, 0 5; \mathrm {G F I} =, 9 9 0; \mathrm {C F I} =, 9 9 7; \mathrm {R M S E A} =, 0 0 7 $$ suggest the non-rejection of the null hypothesis regarding the significant differences between the theoretical dimensions with respect to the established factors.

Discussion

Agglomeration is the indicator of  peri-urban  habitus however it contrasts with food, which suggests that provisions or innovations may be part of improvised practical norms and styles. It also implies the convergence of discourses with daily practices that can be translated into innovations from which a response system is generated in the face of increased rates or accidents. A good part of the transfer is consumed in traffic and therefore finding added values ​diversifies the daily responses that the actors construct in the face of their subjective needs and objective work structures. In this sense, the  peri-urban  habitus  implies discursive and practical spaces of power in which user appropriate public services as a refuge from insecurity, a resource for economic income or dissemination of emotions. The periurban habitus seems to be a latent disposition that emerges when its intersubjective structures are related to the objective structures of transfer and the subjective desires for mobility.

However, the peri-urban habitus , unlike the discursive one, supposes the improvisation of derived emotions, although the process is discussed, from the past since marginality, exclusion and vulnerability are historical antecedents of mobility styles and are materialized in discourses in situations risk and uncertainty. This is how the peri-urban habitus brings with it the collective history of the actors who move to the capital to work study or simply diversify their daily activities. Despite the fact that this does not directly affect the innovative responses of the actors, the added value of mobility (listening to music,  messaging  or chatting) are symptoms of a habitus that seeks to separate actors from objective structures while  bringing  the actors closer together. They to their subjective desires, even if the preferences are the result of intersubjectivity.

In reference to the study by Carreón, et al. [41] in which they found community participation in terms of internal transport in the study locality, the present work has found that the  periurban  habitus  crosses spaces and times of movement without leaving a trace that is not ecological but symbolic in the daily life of the communities. That is to say, for the study location, public transport is only an instrument or means to achieve the purpose of moving, although this implies some practices such as those of added value that, due to their degree of innovation, are more acquired than inherited provisions because they would contrast with those symbols and meanings that previous generations built around their locality and comparison to the capital.

Study also agrees with the finding Hernandez, et al. [34] in which they were established agendas of public discussion about security and billing system.  In this work, accidents are considered as an emergent response to drunk drivers or those who have the lack of skill to cause them.

However, the work of Mejía, et al. [35] warns that public transport is subject to client public policies in which the peri-urban mobility habitus interrelates with authorities based on subsidies. In other words, as the public transport rate increases, users develop low-intensity strategies that gradually increase as the cost of the service increases. In this same sense, the present study has established that as long as technology is introduced into the quality of service and an environmental awareness is generated, users will not only accept, but will promote the public transport service.

Indeed,  Morales, et al. [37] support the positive relationship between subsidy, technologization and sustainability, but warn that once a certain level of increase has arrived, the relationship turns negative since the user›s ecological behavior ends when they  develop a perception of injustice that, together with their perception of risk and perceived utility, make up a rational system of aversion to the future which translates into emotions of insecurity, discomfort and indignation at the opacity, discretion or negligence of the authorities.  In the  present research we have shown that technology, in terms of public safety, reduces the perception of risk and emotions such as fear or anger, but given the spread of negative propaganda towards the system and its administrators, users seem to form a series of discursive field from which a practical awareness develops that leads not only to inaction, but also increases their depersonalization of the problems related to the use of public transport.

If the public transport system is related to mobility habitus, then it would be possible to anticipate public policies that are in harmony with safety, efficiency and sustainability, however Rosas, et al. [41] suggest that the mobility habitus is limited to the resources of the public transport system more than to the demands and expectations of users. In this sense, the mobility habitus could not develop into a  sustainability  habitus  indicated by a planning of the movement in the system or its deliberate use, inhibiting the obstacles that impede its efficiency.  Rather, the peri-urban mobility habitus is sustained by a series of practical actions in which comfort and personal satisfaction are strengthened based on the subsidy.

Or  , as the work of Montes, et al. [36] points out, the competition for passage is the scenario where the civility of the user is gestated and not so much from his needs except in the female user as a factor of formality and identity such as Pereira, et al. [38] points it out, or, as a reaction strategy to events that show the system vulnerable from the perspective of Rodríguez, et al. [40] who warns about the increase in criminal cases within the system  , although Torres, et al. [42] has demonstrated that the quality of the service has a subjective factor that determines customer satisfaction [43].

Conclusion

The relations of appropriation, transformation and distribution of resources and spaces in their development process, encouraged the differentiation of social classes.  As the differences were exacerbated, the segregation of the spaces protected the  appropriative  and transformative differences while heightened the distributive differences of resources, mainly  public transport.  This process confronted public policies against privileged lifestyles and market demands.

In summary, the present study has as its  main contribution to open the discussion about public transport as a coercive system in which the habitus mobility of users who move from the periphery to the central fits the s powers for resources and intransigence in the face of the demands, needs and expectations of users.

Thus, an investigation into the s powers for resources, passage and space travel might suggest that the system is vulnerable to conflicts between users and authorities against risks such as accidents, assaults, crowds, street trading, kidnapping and abuse of power.

The habitus mobility could explain this dynamic in which subjectivities interact with the administrative structure and public safety.

However, s must address the problem from the speeches of the users as they have been excluded from management decisions within the framework of political  public of climate change and subsidy programs for zero emission transportation.