Title

Transport, employment and social exclusion: changing the contours through information technology

Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

2000

Subject Area

Location - UK, Social Issues - Social exclusion, Social Issues - social inclusion, Transport accessibility - Lack of access, Transport policy - Disadvantage

Abstract

Transport and social exclusion/inclusion is rapidly emerging as a major policy issue and has become a highly visible item of the 'joined up government' agenda of New Labour Britain. This visibility, however, has operated more strongly at the level of rhetoric or language than in the commissioning of substantial research into the relationship between transport and social exclusion or in the commissioning of on the ground projects designed to improve the transport circumstances of the disadvantaged.The weakness of policy activity in the transport and social exclusion area is best demonstrated perhaps by viewing the methodology used for constructing the government's own Indices of local deprivation (http://www.regeneration.detr.gov.uk/rs/03100/index.htm). The accessibility data incorporated in these indices is not related to either public transport service levels nor to car or vehicle ownership statistics: it is a straight "as the crow flies" measure of geographical distance from some very basic services such as primary school and general practitioners' surgeries. Presently, parents in Bermondsey in South London are holding their children out of secondary school and attempting to form a local school of their own because the secondary school facilities available to these parents and children is eight miles away, involves two bus changes and a journey of one and a half hours in either direction (http://www.simonhughesmp.org.uk/article8.html). The present indices of local deprivation would not capture this severe failure of public service availability. Poverty or social exclusion is not simply a matter of household income, it is also strongly related to the quality of public service availability. Worryingly, the studies which have been conducted have had no remit to investigate the extent to which the new information technologies can be utilised to overcome the accessibility and mobility disadvantages of the socially excluded. The use of information technology by parents in Bermondsey could assist in the viable and sustainable provision of a local 'charter' school: technology could provide an alternative to 'journey' and provide the skilling through e-technology necessary for the future employment of youth (Turner et al., 2000). Substitution of physical journeys by electronic journeys requires consideration within an overall transport framework - for employment, for education, for health, for household financial managements and social welfare provision.