Although the concept of social equity seems to be ubiquitous in most mobility plans of major Latin American cities, when evaluating transport projects for financing and prioritisation there are no specific or solid indicators to measure how they can contribute to promoting better access to opportunities, particularly for the most vulnerable segments of the population. In response, we designed a methodology that uses the concepts of accessibility and affordability as a complementary means for evaluating public transport investment, and identifying transport disadvantages and priorities for project generation. This is based on the calculation of accessibility levels to the labour market for different zones of a given city, by introducing a function of impedance composed by travel time budget and the percentage of income spent on transportation.

The characteristics of time and percentage of income spent for accessing work obtained from transportation surveys define the “real accessibility” to employment for all the zones of a city. Then, a stated preference survey was applied in order to determine the desired expenditure in both variables, and the accessibility to jobs in this new situation was subsequently calculated. We calculated a third type of accessibility, using “standard” values of travel time and expenditure budget.

This methodology is therefore used to evaluate different policies in Bogota, corresponding to changes in the fare structure of the existing public transport system, by proposing the development of cross subsidies, and carrying out an appraised on the impact of the development of a new Bus Rapid Transit line. The results show that depending on the population, its location and purchasing power, the impact of a redistributive fare with respect to accessibility to the labour market can be greater than the expansion and improvement of the public transport network.

The development of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems world-wide has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years, most notably in cities throughout the developing world. These large, city-wide transportation projects are often central to larger urban revitalization plans intending to foster economic growth and alter city images to both residents and to outsiders. Crucial to the success of such ambitions is a system that provides equitable access to all residents and one that provides access to a large number of urban opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the spatial accessibility landscape created by newly implemented BRT system in Cali, Colombia in terms of both access to the system itself and access to three distinct activities around the city. In particular, the equitable distribution of accessibility patterns is explored in relation to neighborhood socio-economic strata. Findings indicate that walking access to the BRT system is greatest for middle income groups and most limited for neighborhoods in the highest and lowest socio-economic strata. Accessibility values to activities are largely bound to the spatial distribution pattern of activities; most equitable for intentionally dispersed recreation site, and least for spatially clustered hospitals.

As a minimum, how much do rural households need to be able to afford adequate transport? This paper is drawn from the Minimum Income Standards (MIS) research programme, which primarily involves groups of members of the public reaching consensus about what households need for a minimum, socially acceptable standard of living. The paper looks at the additional needs and costs of rural households, compared with their urban counterparts, and focuses on the methodology used to research these costs. This discussion is framed in terms of transport disadvantage, and the Capability Approach. The results of the research are presented: how travel needs and costs vary for different household types; and how minimum transport costs impact on overall household budgets. The paper concludes by considering the possible application of the ‘MIS Rural’ approach in practice.

In this paper, we seek to highlight the importance of understanding the social impacts and consequences, as well as the distributional effects, of transport decision-making. Based on an extensive review of the contemporary literature, we aim to clarify key concepts and definitions around the notion of social impacts, and to give them an identity distinct from economic and environmental impacts and from existing notions of ‘distributional issues’. We primarily focus on five short-term or ‘immediate’ categories of social impact, namely accessibility, movement and activities, health-related, financial related and community-related impacts. We then consider the spatial, temporal and socio-demographic distributional effects of transport at every level of planning, policy and systems delivery. We also briefly discuss some of the longer-term social consequences of these social impacts in terms of health, individual and community wellbeing and social equity and justice. The paper is designed as an introduction to a wider discussion of these themes in this Special Issue Social Impacts and Equity Issues in Transport. Our overall aim for the paper is to demonstrate that, by overlooking the social impacts and social equity implications of transport decision-making at every level of the decision-making process, we are fundamentally undermining quality of life and social well-being in our towns, cities and rural settlements. Conversely, we believe that integration and consideration of the social impacts of transport planning and delivery can significantly increase the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of a number of other important areas of economic and social policy, including employment, health, education and economic development.

This paper argues that the drive to build housing and to clear crowded slums has led to the dispersal of population. The building of large subsidised housing estates as replacement housing for former slums has compounded social problems by concentrating low income households in cut-off communities. Low income households in poorer neighbourhoods have far lower levels of car ownership than average and yet suffer higher levels of traffic and environmental damage because the dispersal process encourages the growth of car traffic and the polarisation of neighbourhoods.

Based on evidence from longitudinal studies of families bringing up children in low income neighbourhoods, and of unpopular housing estates in Britain and Europe, the author argues that social, economic, locational, and environmental problems interact in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods with negative consequences for families and other vulnerable households.

Current patterns of dispersal and low density building encourage the segregation of communities and at the extreme, the creation of ‘ghettos’ as the US demonstrates. Yet the built environment evolves only slowly, and urban communities are locked into patterns of settlements, energy use and inequality that are hard to change. More collective transport modes would reduce environmental damage while enhancing social integration. It is costly to introduce new transport infrastructure but essential if we are to equalise conditions and opportunities.

There are alternatives to the prevailing pattern of outer suburban building and population dispersal: more compact, more mixed-use city neighbourhoods. Denser, more people-friendly, less traffic-dominated neighbourhoods would be more integrated and offer more opportunity. Their energy requirements and environmental impact would be lower, and low income families would not suffer such unequal conditions and their consequences.

This article explores the impact of low population density and transport constraints on skills development and the take up of learning and training opportunities in a rural area of eastern England. It draws on analyses of secondary data sources, qualitative interviews and a focus group discussion with employers, trainers and other actors in the labour market, and a survey of young people in their penultimate year of compulsory schooling. Using the concept of the ‘low skills equilibrium’, it discusses how a relatively poor transport infrastructure and a dispersed population combine to present challenges for local economic development. It concludes that transport and travel play a crucial ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ role in exacerbating poor skills and low productivity, through thwarting attempts to improve access to learning and training that would help the local economy to achieve higher levels of productivity and economic growth.

This paper describes a series of focus groups that were undertaken in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to examine the challenges faced by older people in rural Ireland when trying to make trips. The paper outlines transport policy in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and describes the activity patterns of older trip makers and the modes they use. It also discusses some of the contrasts between challenges faced by older men and older women. Both older men and older women experience a shrinking in activity spaces and activity participation when older. Older women are less likely to drive and to own a car and so are seriously impacted by loss of a spouse in terms of their unmet travel needs. However, older men also experience difficulties: the alternatives that are available (such as community transport schemes) provide trips and services that are more attractive to women. In addition, the car dependent lifestyles of men throughout their adult lives seems to make them less prepared for life without a car than older women.

As a guarantee of life quality, older people’s travel demand has to be satisfied, so understanding their travel demand is important. An important point to bear in mind is that older people are not a homogeneous group but that distinguishing between older women and older men in their mobility needs and travel patterns is necessary. Older people’s travel demand needs to be investigated from many different aspects, including trip generation, travel time, and mode choice. In this study, the investigation is focused on older people’s trip chaining, including trip chain complexity, tour composition in a chain.

The discussion within a number of Global South cities is increasingly focused on the planning and implementation of large-scale urban mass transport systems. There is, however, a significant challenge of delivering such large investments in a manner to produce equity in the benefits across different urban spaces and across different social groupings. The transaction costs of urban survival and its associated urban mobility and their differences across gender and other social groups may work against the hypothesised distribution of benefits predicted from traditional individualistic, utility-maximising rational choice planning models. This may affect the social sustainability of such large-scale investments. There is a need for new methods and protocols in transport planning and management to ensure that such transport systems promote social sustainability. The mainstreaming of gender into the planning, financing, implementation, operation and management of such large-scale urban transport systems is a fundamental component for tackling the challenges facing the delivery of social sustainability. This paper will look at a case study of the Jabotabek Suburban Rail and Bus Rapid Transit systems in Jakarta as examples of large-scale mass transit investment. It will draw on survey research that highlights the gender differences in the use of this large urban transport system, gender differences in how the system interacts with geographies of opportunities and daily travel patterns, gender differences in the impact of the systems operation on passenger safety and security. It will highlight the need for new gender and user group protocols in the planning, implementation and management of urban mass-transit systems. It will provide some concrete examples of what measures would arise from such new planning protocols.

The late 1990s and early 2000s witnessed a growing interest amongst UK academics and policy makers in the issue of transport disadvantage and, more innovatively, how this might relate to growing concerns about the socialexclusion of low income groups and communities. Studies (predominantly in the United Kingdom) began to make more explicit the links policy between poverty, transport disadvantage, access to key services and economic and socialexclusion (see for example Church and Frost, 2000; [TRaC, 2000], [Lucas et al., 2001], [Kenyon, 2003], [Kenyon et al., 2003] and [Hodgson and Turner, 2003]; Raje, 2003).

By 2003, the UK SocialExclusion Unit had published and its now internationally recognised report on this subject, which subsequently resulted in the development of a set of transport policy guidances to local authorities in England to deliver what is now commonly referred to as accessibility planning as part of their Local Transport Plans (Department for Transport, 2006). Since this time, researchers, policy makers and practitioners in several other countries became interested in adopting a socialexclusion approach to transport planning, largely because of its utility in identifying the role of transport, land use planning and service delivery decisions in creating and reinforcing poverty and social disadvantage.

Eight years on from the SEU report, we can begin to reflect on the extent to which a socialexclusion approach to the research of transport disadvantage has been successful in opening up new avenues of research enquiry and/or identifying new theoretical perspectives and/or methodological approaches. The paper begins by briefly revisiting the basic theories and core definitions which underpin and inform a socialexclusion perspective. It then considers how these have been translated and understood in terms of transport. Secondly, it considers some of the emergent empirical research of transport-related exclusion that has attempted to measure and model the interactions between transport and mobility inequalities and relational negative social outcomes. Thirdly, it offers observations on progress in some key areas of policy and practice, with specific reference to the UK and Australia. It concludes by suggesting how further progress might be made on this issue and considers whether the socialexclusion agenda is still a relevant approach for achieving this.

This new Version 03 of the Code of Practice (valid from November 2011) replaces all previous versions. It provides standards and guidance for accessibility at railway stations, updated to more accurately reflect the BS8300 changes in 2009, and should be used by all train and station operators whenever they carry out works on their facilities.

Transportation improvements inevitably lead to an uneven distribution of user benefits, in space and by network type (private and public transport). This paper makes a moral argument for what would be a fair distribution of these benefits. The argument follows Walzer’s “Spheres of Justice” approach to define the benefits of transportation, access, as a sphere deserving a separate, non-market driven, distribution. That distribution, we propose, is one where the maximum gap between the lowest and highest accessibility, both by mode and in space, should be limited, while attempting to maximize average access. We then review transportation planning practice for a priori distributional goals and find little explicit guidance in conventional and even justice-oriented transportation planning and analyses. We end with a discussion of the implications for practice.

The tradeoff between patronage and coverage is the type of value-judgment that elected officials are paid to make. The paper presents a means of quantifying the tradeoff, to facilitate public discussion and decisions on how to balance these priorities. These strategies are designed to ensure that the decision about how to balance social versus patronage goals is made consciously rather than inadvertently, with a clear understanding of the consequences of the choice.