Measuring Transport Equity

Karen Lucas, Karel Martens, Floridea Di Ciommo, Ariane Dupont-Kieffer

• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780128148198
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Transportation & Navigation
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Measuring Transport Equity provides a range of methods with the potential to shape transport decision-making processes, thus allowing for the adoption of more equitable transport solutions. Presenting numerous applied methods and applications of transport equity assessment, this book formalizes the disciplinary practice, definitions, and methodologies for transport equity. In addition, it recognizes the different types of equity and acknowledges that each requires its own assessment methodologies. Bringing together the most up-to-date perspectives and practical approaches for assessing equity in relation to accessibility, environmental impacts, health, and wellbeing, the book sets standards for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners for conducting social impact analyses and is an ideal reference for those involved in transport planning.

• Written by a collection of top researchers and upcoming scholarsin the transport field
• Shows how to apply transport equity measurement ideas in the real world through case study examples
• Covers emerging transport topics, including the use of advanced measures of inequality
• Includes learning aids, such as methodology, application, policy relevance, and further reading

Part One

Introduction

1

Introduction

Karen Lucas; Karel Martens; Floridea Di Ciommo; Ariane Dupont-Kieffer

1 Introduction to the book

This book aims to introduce the researchers and policymakers interested in the issue of transport equity to a range of approaches to evaluate what is a fair allocation of transport resources between different population groups and places. This is a thorny issue which has already been identified as an important policy problem for the 21st century within an array of academic and policy literatures. In this book, we do not attempt to directly revisit or review these wide-ranging discussions, except to say that many of them have helped to shape our own understandings of what transport inequity might be like, how it occurs, and its social consequences for the individuals and wider society.

What we do is to offer a range of practical methods and evaluation tools (without necessarily preferring one over the other) to allow readers to select approaches that best fit a specific line of inquiry or identified area of transport-related disparities. By employing various approaches in parallel, the analyst will be able to develop more systematic and deeper understandings of the underlying causal factors which drive inequities in transport. This will help to identify, and subsequently to evaluate, practical ways to direct transport decision making toward more socially and spatially equitable solutions that are inclusive for all.

Typically, the analyses presented in the book demonstrate that the benefits of the transport systems, such as mobility resources and the accessibility these provide to goods, services, and activity destinations, are not fairly distributed across different sectors of the population and the places where they live, work, and play. The various methods that we present in the chapters of this book seek to draw out differences in framings of these transport “problems,” to identify who and where is most or least advantaged by the system of provision, and to evaluate how this can link to wider social problems, such as unemployment, poor healthcare uptake, and social isolation.

Perversely, the people who have the lowest access to vehicle ownership, less overall vehicle use, and poorer availability of other transport resources (e.g., physical infrastructures, online ticket booking and journey planner systems, etc.), are most often also the worst impacted by the disbenefits of the transport system. In the book, the authors analyzing the distribution of the exposure to these negative impacts identify how vulnerable population sectors, such as children, older people, and low-income households are often the most disproportionately affected by traffic-related injuries and fatalities, air and noise pollution, and attacks on their personal safety. Whilst all these negative transport impacts can create serious problems for the affected individuals, they are also a significant burden for the society as a whole in terms of increased health costs, reduced social cohesion, and diminished community well-being.

Transport decision makers, in different and diverse contexts worldwide, and in both the Global North and South, are increasingly recognizing these important transport inequities, as well as an increasingly urgent need to address them in the achievement of economically productive, environmentally sustainable, and socially inclusive cities. To do so, they require new evaluation tools that can readily signal the equity implications of their decision processes and policy options and to evaluate the success of their policy interventions in terms of reducing inequities of outcome. Simultaneously, more and more students in transport studies, and related fields such as environmental and public health sciences, urban geography, and planning, are turning their attention toward transport equity, as a fruitful topic for study and new research developments. The book aims to help them in this most important and rewarding journey.

2 Discussion of different concepts of equity and its measurement

How transport equity is defined can significantly influence the way that it is measured as well as the analytical outcome. A policy solution may seem equitable when evaluated one way but inequitable when evaluated another way, when using different datasets or metrics, or when conducting analyses at different spatial scales, and when considering various social factors.

In this book, we take the view that there is no single correct approach to measuring transport equity, and that it is possible to consider various positionings, perspectives, contexts, measures, and methodologies. In the main, however, the four key issues for transport equity analysis relate to the questions about:

1. (1) A fair allocation of transport resources, including infrastructures, services, and expenditures—it is recognized that additional resources or efforts may need to be targeted toward some groups in order to bring them into line with the rest of the population.
2. (2) A fair opportunity to be mobile in order to gain accessibility to key “life chance” activities—however, it is also recognized that providing accessibility opportunities may not necessarily involve the need to be mobile, in fact there are often tensions between increased mobility, especially for already highly mobile segments of the population, and increased travel burdens for the least mobile.
3. (3) The reduction of adverse effects of transport systems—including exposures to pollution, traffic-related risks, and personal safety, with particular emphasis on protecting the most vulnerable population groups.
4. (4) Widening participation in the decision-making process—it is recognized that the people and communities who are currently suffering inequities from the transport system should be given a (larger) say in how these problems are resolved as an integral part of the policy process.

An important issue in each of these four cases is where to set the benchmark in terms of the desired policy outcome. Is it the policy intention to create parity of opportunity, for instance that everyone has equality of opportunity to connect via public transit with key destinations such as employment, education, and health-care services? Or to adopt a policy of zero tolerance whereby no person should be exposed to unhealthy levels of traffic pollutants? Or is it the intention to target those who are the worst off by ensuring that they have a sufficient level of access to given goods and services based on a benchmark of what is deemed to be an acceptable level within society?

Each benchmark or policy goal will require a different form of measurement and metric to determine “equity.” What is most important in the interpretation of such analyses, is that a disparity in the distribution of goods and services does not necessarily denote an inequity and that noting an inequity is a long way from delivering fairness in terms of the realignment of the allocation of resources and/or protection of individuals (as shown in Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Simple schema for measuring transport equity at different stages of its interpretation.

Because this issue of the type of comparison that is being made is such an important issue to consider in the determination of appropriate policy responses to transport inequities and to the chapters of this book, we next offer some further discussion of the separation between these different interpretations.

2.1 Observed differences or disparities

Uncovering, explaining, and understanding patterns in people's behaviors are one of the core missions of social research. It may, therefore, be no surprise that a substantial share of transport equity research (in its broadest definition) analyzes the differences between people in multiple dimensions, such as the number of trips, daily travel distances, the use of transport modes, traffic-related deaths and injuries, the share of public transport subsidies received, the transport-related tax burden, or the exposure to transport-related pollution. From studying patterns and differences, it is only a small step to the analysis of disparities.

The transport literature abounds with studies that primarily employ the word “disparities” in a descriptive sense. A large share of these transport studies goes further and employs the word disparities to implicitly or explicitly identify observed differences as “unfair or inequitable.” Such studies often fall short in presenting an explicit standard for assessment, and fail to acknowledge that the mere observation of disparities does not, by itself, raise issues of equity. Hence, in this book, we use the word disparities merely in a descriptive sense and thus as a synonym for differences or dissimilarities. The aim of the chapters is then to go beyond the description of disparities toward an explicit assessment of inequity, for which a directly stated evaluation standard is needed to actually determine whether a disparity is fair or not.

2.2 Moving from disparities to inequality to inequity

One reason why disparity in behaviors and outcomes are often perceived as unfair, lies in the (implicit and often intuitive) use of the normative benchmark of equality. Against this background, the step between observing disparities and (implicitly) criticizing them because they imply a deviation from equality is then but a small one. This typically goes hand in hand with a concern for the protection of vulnerable population groups, for instance in terms of gender, socioeconomic position, age, ethnicity, disability, or disadvantaged residential location.

At the same time, it should be acknowledged that equality, like disparity, can also be used in a solely descriptive way. A descriptive use of the term would include statements like “rich and poor households spend an equal amount of money on transport.” Such a statement, which is centered on the notion of equality, may implicitly equate the word “equal” with “fair,” “just,” or “equitable.” However, such a descriptive statement does not point at an issue of justice or injustice, unless there is a clear and explicit benchmark. For example, a possible benchmark could be that spending an equal amount is fair (in which case the statement above points at a fair or just state of affairs) or that transport expenditures should be affordable for all households (in which case the statement above may point toward an injustice). The step from inequalities to inequities is but a small one, but it should be underscored that inequalities only become a matter of justice if equality is considered as the morally proper state of affairs.

2.3 From measured inequities to judgments about fairness and justice

The final, and perhaps most difficult step, is to move from the observation of inequities to policies and interventions addressing inequities so as to promote greater fairness and justice. This will often imply painful choices that maybe at odds with traditional and still dominant preconceptions regarding the primary ...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Editors biography
• Authors biography
• Foreword
• Part One: Introduction
• Part Two: Benefits of transport: Accessibility
• Part Three: Burdens of transport: Health, environment and other externalities
• Part Four: Social outcomes from transport interventions
• Part Five: Closure
• Index