Placing Accessibility At The Center Of Travel Behavior Modeling: A Conceptual Framework

The paradigm shift from mobility to accessibility planning demands analytical approaches to understanding and modeling travel behavior. Yet most behavioral frameworks still lack a clearer representation of how urban form, individual, accessibility, and travel behavior relate to each other; most represent accessibility indirectly through exogenous attributes of the built environment and transport networks, neglecting its temporal, individual and digital components. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that positions accessibility as the central mediator between urban structure and individual travel decisions. Grounded in time geography and building on the multidimensional accessibility model of Geurs and van Wee (2004, 2026), the framework integrates land-use, transport, temporal, individual-and-social, and digital components, and articulates how tangible constraints and perceptions jointly shape travel behavior. The framework is designed to accommodate feedback loops and self-selection mechanisms, providing a structure for both theoretical reflection and empirical analysis. As a proof of concept, we apply it through a multigroup Structural Equation Model to household travel survey data from Fortaleza, Brazil, a highly segregated metropolis. The empirical results support the mediating role of accessibility and reveal gendered differences in how its components translate into motorized and non-motorized mobility. By making explicit the influences of accessibility components on travel behavior, the framework offers researchers and planners a structured basis for hypothesis formulation and for aligning transport modeling with goals of social inclusion, accessibility equity, and sustainable urban development.