Social impacts and equity issues in transport: an introduction

2010

The overall aim of this workshop series is to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and capacity building; to better equip researchers, policymakers and practitioners across the different social science and transport disciplines to address the social challenges of providing transport and access, and to maximise the social benefits of the transport system within the UK context, now and in the future. The series is designed to explore various theoretical, policy and practical perspectives through a number of themed events. This will facilitate a broad-based discussion of the subject amongst transport and non-transport professionals and to draw on the capacity and skills of those who may have not previously contributed to this debate to bring their different approaches, knowledge and experiences to the subject. In this way, we will be able to generate a network of interest from across a range of disciplines which is capable of advising on policy issues and participating in future col...

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.

2011

Despite the widely acknowledged significance of the social impacts of transport in political and public life and their distributional effects across various segments of society, this issue has received less policy attention relative to economic and environmental impacts. The aim of this working paper is to synthesise and critically evaluate the currently disparate literatures pertaining to the social impacts and equity of transport, transport disadvantage as it pertains to different social groups, and the wider interactions between transport poverty and social exclusion. It summarises what is known about these issues at the present time, identifies gaps in the knowledge base and draws attention to opportunities for further research.

European Transport Research Review

2008

Breaking the 'workless' culture The importance of transport to job take-up and retention 21 Providing links to key services and facilities Regeneration benefi ts to the wider area The impact of current funding arrangements The importance of joint funding and partnership working 6 Use of the services and their value to local people Services user profi les and use of the services Reducing the overall cost of travel Access to work Access to education Access to health care Access to shopping, leisure and social activities 39 Non-users of services and wider community benefi ts 41 7 Evaluating the social benefi ts of new transport initiatives Capturing the benefi ts of improved accessibility to health services Capturing the employment benefi ts of improved accessibility Summary of the benefi ts arising from these new transport projects 8 Conclusions and recommendations Messages to central government Messages to front-line workers promoting social inclusion Further work References Appendix 1: Research design, methods and analysis Appendix 2: Cost calculations for social benefi ts of transport vi vii Foreword It should be noted that our fi eldwork studies took place between September 2006 and March 2007, and our fi ndings relate to this period of project operation only. We have made every effort to update our information for the publication of this report, but we recognise that this is an evolving policy arena and some details may have changed in the period following our research. The research has required the frank and honest discussion of the experiences and perceptions of local policy-makers and practitioners responsible for developing and delivering the four transport projects on which we focused for this study. The opinions that they expressed and that we quoted in this report are those of the individuals we interviewed and do not necessarily represent the offi cial position of the organisations in which they work. By combining these interviews with those of local people using the new transport projects that have been delivered in their neighbourhoods, we have tried to ensure that as broad a range of views and opinions as possible have been taken into account, but we do not claim these are necessarily representative of the views of the wider population. viii Acknowledgements We would like to offer our special thanks to Michael Brooks and Alex Upton who joined the team to undertake interviews with local people in the four case studies and also helped with the analysis of this information. We also want to thank Professor Peter White of the Transport Studies Group at the University of Westminster for his help and advice at the cost benefi t analysis stage of the study. Thanks also go to our wonderful transcriber Dot Kirkham and to Lucy McWeeney the Transport Studies Group administrator for all her support. In addition, we are extremely grateful for the considerable help and cooperation of all the local agencies that we worked with in the course of our study and, in particular,