Title

Social aspects of sustainable mobility - Paper 3 of 10,

Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

2001

Subject Area

Location - Europe, Mobility - Accessibility (Disability), Modes of Transport - Bicycle, Social Issues - social inclusion

Abstract

This paper provides a structured guide to the findings and policy implications of research carried out in the Transport RTD Programme that relates to the social aspects of sustainable mobility. The transport sector plays a major role in the social fabric of Europe. It generates substantial employment, assists regional development, and provides access to all sorts of services, leisure activities and job opportunities. On the other hand, current trends are creating concerns. For example, greater car dependency is increasing the social exclusion of people dependent of public transport, while liberalisation of transport services could harm employment and working conditions. Changes in transport prices aimed at efficiency and environmental protection could reduce social equity by excessively penalising low-income groups. Therefore, policy actions have to strike a balance between conflicting economic, environmental and social objectives. This includes taking account of longer-term impacts on patterns of regional development, employment, land use and working practices. RTD is providing a vital foundation for this, developing guidelines and tools to support the evaluation of policy measures and estimating their likely impacts. In this paper, results are reviewed for five inter-related areas: physical accessibility, pricing acceptance and equity, support for public transport, European cohesion and working conditions