Distributive justice and equity in transportation

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information

The modifiable areal unit problem is of great importance in geographic science. The use of a specific zoning impacts the social and economic imbalances that can be generated in the deployment of services, facilities, and infrastructure. In this article, GIS is used together with simulation and optimization tools to analyse the effects of bus frequency changes in the levels of service and horizontal equity derived from different types of territorial zoning. The city of Palma (Balearic Islands, Spain) was chosen as a case study for the method, for which different geographical areas are used: neighbourhoods, census sections, cadastral blocks, and a 400 × 400 m mesh. The results show significant variations of the optimal frequencies obtained, depending on the type of zoning used. In general, smaller zonings show much higher sensitivity for the detection of imbalances between the population and bus service level. Likewise, orthogonal zonings also prove useful for identifying service and ...

European Planning Studies

The designation of peripheral areas with poor access to health care services is a key criterion for possible support from various targeted programmes or strategies. The proper delineation of the periphery relies on many factors, including (1) the accessibility measure adopted (proximity approach, population percentage, cumulative accessibility, potential accessibility and accessibility measure with competition); (2) the type of medical service (pharmacies, basic health care facilities, emergency health care services, hospitals and specialized health care services); (3) the method of determining the periphery area (fixed threshold vs worst deciles). We conclude that methodological assumptions concerning types of medical services, measures of accessibility or the way of determining the periphery should be precisely identified and tailored to a particular policy and case-study area, as even small differences may have a decisive impact on identification of municipalities belonging to a health care desert. Therefore, planners and decision makers should take note of this fact when evaluating funds both for improving accessibility through transport investments as well as for deciding the location of new health care facilities.

Frontiers in Built Environment

Bikesharing may have numerous urban health, sustainability, and mobility benefits. Bikesharing systems that do not require stations (i.e., "dockless," or "free-floating" bikeshare) launched in North America in 2017. While this novel model may enhance access to and use of bikeshare by diverse populations, to date no work has examined equity in free-floating bikeshare use. This brief report uses a web-based panel survey (n = 601) to provide sociodemographic characteristics of adult Seattle residents reporting bikeshare use during the first 6 months of a pilot free-floating program. One-third of Seattle adults surveyed reported trying free-floating bikeshare. These users were disproportionately young, male, White, resided closer to the city center, and already more likely to have or use a bicycle. Safety, social, spatial access, physical size, operation, technology, and cost barriers remained, particularly for males and non-White respondents. Almost half of non-users were open to trying free-floating bikeshare. However, these respondents hold limited potential to diversify the user population: while more likely to be female, like current riders, they were young and already using bicycles. If cities, researchers, and operators work together in the rapidly-shifting mobility landscape, they may be able to remove inequitably distributed barriers to transportation technology.

Sustainability

Bogotá, a paradigmatic case of urban (re)development driven by transport interventions, began transforming its public transport system anew in mid-2010. It was not until 2012 when a gradual implementation of the new integrated public transport system of Bogotá (SITP in Spanish) began. By 2015, about 74% of the new bus routes were implemented. The considerable changes in supply and operational models for public transport during this period redefined travel conditions, having a direct impact on accessibility. Our research analyzes observable changes in accessibility to jobs and houses at both the home and work ends of trips as a result of differences in travel time for respondents to a household travel survey in Bogotá between 2011 and 2015. The paper presents a cross-sectional analysis of accessibility changes, pinpointing low accessibility levels facilitated by the current public transport system to the most deprived groups of Bogotá. Results are presented as access curves by socioe...

Sustainability

This research sets out to examine the interaction between accessibility, social inequalities and sustainability by revisiting a well-documented case of inequalities in access in Global South cities: Bogotá. Our analysis builds on the concept of accessibility, focusing on the role of transport as an enabler of opportunities for social interactions, healthcare and leisure, which are essential to the full participation in society. The research applies a methodological framework for accessibility developed and tested in the Latin American context, though it has not been previously applied to non-commuting travel. Our paper contributes to the existing evidence base showing the relevance of non-commuting travel to sustainable transport assessment in contexts of high inequality, which can be scaled up and applied in other contexts with various levels of social and environmental inequalities. The empirical analysis is based on data from Bogotá’s household travel survey. Using this dataset, ...

2021

This paper reports on a systematic review of the literature around governance and water infrastructure in England to analyse data on the application, or absence, of justice themes. It finds that, unlike in other sectors, justice thinking is far from embedded in the water sector here and whilst there are signs of a discussion there is a lack of sophistication and coherence around the debate. More positively, the research suggests that the concept of justice can be used as a tool or framework to help air and address these complex issues and in doing so is an advance on the concept of sustainability. By exploring the issues in this way, the study reveals a wealth of opportunities to use justice-thinking to improve infrastructure decision making. It is suggested a justice approach is the next step as our thinking matures beyond sustainability, improving the decisions we make for people and planet.

Urban Geography, 2019

We explore how the language of "just sustainability" may become subsumed into a sustainability fix strategy, depoliticizing the utility of concepts such as justice and/or equity. Building from critical GIS insights, we combine digitized spatial data from participatory mapping exercises and community-organization-based focus groups in Portland, Oregon, regarding a proposed six-mile biking and walking path around downtown. We find that 80% of participants' typical travel destinations are outside of downtown Portland and that participants experience planning and sustainability in a highly localized manner, challenging the equity rationale of downtown investment. We argue the top-down planning model, which presumes the spatial diffusion of benefits is equitable, is inherently ahistorical and fails to benefit those in historically marginalized neighborhoods. Finally, we argue for the value of community-oriented research, which, in this case, inspired a coalition of community organizations to formally oppose a city-led project based on the inequitable distribution of infrastructure benefits.

Transport Reviews

Digitalisation in transport services offers many benefits for travellers. However, not everyone is willing or able to follow the new, more or less formal requirements digitalisation has brought along. Existing reviews on the intersection between Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and mobility cover a range of vantage points, but the perspective of how various levels of engagement with digital technologies affect access and navigation of transport services has not been addressed yet. In communication science, studying disparities in terms of ICT appropriation and their consequences is known as digital inequality research. This review paper aims at shedding light on what digital inequality in the context of transport services consists of and what its consequences are. To do so, we define and use a conceptual framework for the analysis of digital inequality in transport services. The review of the twenty-five papers, as selected in our systematic literature search, shows that there is a burgeoning interest in this topic. Vulnerability to digitalisation in transport services exists along dimensions of age, income, education, ethnicity, gender and geographical region. We find that motivations and material access get more attention than digital skills and effective usage. Nevertheless, literature acknowledges that having material access to technology does not mean that people benefit from what technology has to offer. Furthermore, the characteristics of ICTs impact one's possibilities to access digital technologies, such as how user-friendly a technology is. Data-driven and algorithm-based decision-making present a particularly pernicious form of digital exclusion from transport services. As digital technologies are progressively becoming indispensable to navigate the world of transport services, low levels of digital engagement may create a new layer of transport disadvantage, possibly on top of existing ones. Although digitalisation can be part of the solution to transport disadvantage, it can also be part of the problem. With network effects at play, what might start as a relative disadvantage may turn into an absolute disadvantage. Given the nascent state of research on digital inequality in transport services, much remains to be understood. Suggested research avenues include mechanisms of digital exclusion from transport services, the contribution of digital ARTICLE HISTORY

Land

During the COVID-19 pandemic, urban green spaces (UGS) have gained relevance as a resilience tool that can sustain or increase well-being and public health in cities. However, several cities in Latin America have seen a decrease in their UGS use rates during the health emergency, particularly among vulnerable groups such as women. Using Mexico City as a case study, this research examines the main barriers affecting women’s access to UGS during the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America. We applied a sequential mixed-methods approach in which the results of a survey distributed via social media in June 2020 to women aged 18 and older were used to develop semi-structured interviews with 12 women during October 2020. One year later, in November 2021, the continuity of the themes was evaluated through focus groups with the same group of women who participated in the interviews. Our results suggest that (1) prohibiting access to some UGS during the first months of the pandemic negatively imp...

Canadian Journal of Regional Science, 2021

Le thème de l’équité sociale dans les politiques publiques de mobilité urbaine est de plus en plus abordé dans les travaux scientifiques depuis les années 2000. Ces travaux concernent par exemple les manières de l’appréhender, les facteurs explicatifs à l’oeuvre, les adaptations individuelles, ou les outils dont dispose la collectivité pour prendre en compte cette question dans ses actions, à travers la tarification, la couverture spatiale des réseaux de transports collectifs ou le développement de services alternatifs. Un champ reste cependant moins souvent abordé, celui concernant la manière dont les acteurs des politiques publiques s’approprient cette thématique et mobilisent des éléments relevant de différentes conceptions de la justice sociale, tant dans leurs discours que dans les actions concrètement mises en oeuvre sur le terrain. Cet article est le fruit d’une première investigation en la matière, réalisée à partir du cas de deux agglomérations de la région Auvergne Rhône A...

Sustainability, 2020

Socio-spatial concerns are gaining increasing attention in the design of interventions for urban mobility. This is especially true in contexts traditionally characterized by structural inequality and high levels of poverty, in which transport can be a decisive contributor to development thanks to its contribution to a higher social inclusion. Amongst them, Latin America has emerged as a significant laboratory for urban and transport policy due not only to its socioeconomic conditions but also to the implementation of different mobility strategies based on the construction of traditional and innovative infrastructures such as subways and bus rapid transit (BRT) systems. These two transport systems can be complementary or alternative to each other: this depends not only on their transport capacity, their economic sustainability, and to their levels of public acceptability but also on social, political, and spatial features of the setting they serve. This paper intends to discuss the s...

Research in Transportation Economics, 2021

On the premise of transport inequality, urban mobility and the production of pedestrian space, this research explores pedestrians (im)mobility in Maputo, Mozambique's capital city, as a means of unravelling deeper-rooted issues of societal inequality. Borrowing from the Right to the City (RTTC), walking is repositioned as a potential 'equalising mode', reflecting on the social, physical and individual drivers of inequalities for walking in the city. Such analysis responds to existing gaps in a literature about walking that has little to offer about its links with social and economic inequalities in the global South. The paper builds on 22 semistructured interviews and a journey audit exercise to discover that whilst the unfavourable pedestrian infrastructure makes walking difficult, the social stigmas of this space have a greater impact on people's perceptions of walkability. As such, low-income identities are more likely to walk, frequently in parts of the city where walking infrastructure is minimal (if at all), and may therefore find it more difficult to exercise their RTTC than their high-income counterparts. To challenge the status quo, this study concludes that more 'hubs' of opportunity must be created to make walking more equitable in addition to improving the most urgent infrastructural shortages.

Public Works Management & Policy, 2018

Equity concerns regarding local revenue sources are increasingly important in the United States, as local sales taxes for transportation increase amid perceived federal funding shortfalls. This study examines shifts in the federal role and local funding sources for public transit projects supported by the New Starts program. The analysis finds that total federal New Starts spending grew over this period, but was distributed across more costly projects, with a resulting decrease in the average federal share per project. As expected, there was increased sales tax use at the local level. The increase in local spending on transit should be met with concern. Prior research has established that sales taxes fail along both the beneficiary to pay and ability to pay equity principles. Thus, the recent massive commitment to expanding public transit infrastructure relies on concerning funding mechanisms and may also fail to prioritize the needs of those with limited accessibility.

American Journal of Community Psychology, 2020

The majority of justice-involved youth are placed on probation; however, many of those same youth struggle to comply with probation requirements and are subsequently confined. In Baltimore, a full 20% of newly committed youth were detained for violations of probation. While there are various reasons youth fail to comply with probation requirements, there have been recent calls to consider the impact of structural and spatial barriers to accessing probation programs and services. In this study, we take a novel, interdisciplinary approach to identifying structural or spatial barriers facing justice-involved youth in Baltimore, MD. Specifically, we explore transportation barriers (i.e., vehicle access) and spatial disparities between youth residences and probation office locations. Our findings suggest that there are several barriers facing Baltimore's justice-involved youth that may impact access to and engagement with juvenile probation. Specifically, we found that 1 in 3 youths reside in areas with extremely low levels of vehicle access and where the median household income is 25% below the city median. We also find that the majority of youth live beyond walking distances; many would require lengthy transit commutes. These findings highlight the structural and spatial barriers facing justice-involved youth that may impact access to and engagement with probation services.

Transport Reviews, 2017

This paper provides an overview of the conceptual essence of a number of justice theories and their possible consequences for transport project appraisal. In this paper, we discuss three alternative philosophical approaches to the still-dominant approach of utilitarianism: Rawls's approach, Walzer's approach, and the capability approach (CA), as they have different practical implications. We discuss which of these approaches could potentially give guidance to transportation appraisal, and which approaches are not suited for this purpose. We demonstrate the use of the CA and compare it to utilitarianism in a case study, and discuss the implications of adopting the former for transport evaluation and policy.

Scientific Reports

Cycling is a promising solution to unsustainable urban transport systems. However, prevailing bicycle network development follows a slow and piecewise process, without taking into account the structural complexity of transportation networks. Here we explore systematically the topological limitations of urban bicycle network development. For 62 cities we study different variations of growing a synthetic bicycle network between an arbitrary set of points routed on the urban street network. We find initially decreasing returns on investment until a critical threshold, posing fundamental consequences to sustainable urban planning: cities must invest into bicycle networks with the right growth strategy, and persistently, to surpass a critical mass. We also find pronounced overlaps of synthetically grown networks in cities with well-developed existing bicycle networks, showing that our model reflects reality. Growing networks from scratch makes our approach a generally applicable starting...

Social Indicators Research

There is rising interest in re-evaluating transport policy, moving away from analysing concrete economic indicators and towards examining the number of persons participating in activities as 'social justice.' So, using the Capacity Approach, this study presents an aggregated model to calculate the level of capability in two neighbourhoods in Tehran, Iran, involving variables from the 'Individuals' and 'Environment' dimensions. The computed factors were then weighted by the Fuzzy AHP technique based on the opinion of Iranian and international experts and combined to produce the final Capability Index (CI). CI results show that residents of the central business district, with an average of 0.628, had a 20% higher CI than residents of the city's outskirts, with 0.483. Furthermore, CI values corroborate prior research results that individuals with higher income, education level, and work position, in addition to higher individual capacity, benefit from a better neighbourhood environment. Also, calculations show that the neighbourhoods are not environmentally accessible for people with disabilities, and this group is suffering from low external capability. Additionally, the model estimates different levels of CI to evaluate the current status and prioritize future urban projects, so the model can be helpful for policy-makers to investigate the capability dimensions separately and decide about future plans.

Transportation

In this paper, we test how different public transport policy scenarios score in terms of fairness for a specific population group, considering a more complex representation of mobility-related inequalities and the policy implications of transport justice. To do so, we assess potential accessibility to public transport in Santiago de Chile under different policy scenarios, focusing on older people as a group whose demographic and socioeconomic conditions can determine different forms of disadvantage. We compare alternative accessibility policies based on the expansion of the Metro infrastructure network or on reduced public transport fares, considering the interaction between the spatial availability and the affordability of public transport. Results show that subsidized fares for public transport services are more beneficial to expand the accessibility of older people, especially those with lower incomes, while the expansion of the Metro network benefits mainly middle-and high-income older people. The proposed analysis is a first step towards a more detailed, place-based reading of mobility-related inequalities, aimed at assessing alternative policy measures.

Urban Forum, 2022

In the ostensibly unceasing prioritization of motorized infrastructure, walking has remained a ubiquitous mode of mobility for a large proportion of Nairobi's urban commuters. Planning for motorized mobility has historically been at a higher level of consideration although a much larger percentage of the population travels on foot. The conspicuous pedestrian has been and continues to be masked under the spotlight of the motor vehicle with a discernible outcome of spatial injustices. Using secondary data, historical literature and expert interviews, this paper examines how walking as a mode of mobility has developed over time and the challenges experienced by pedestrians in Nairobi. Linking to the notion of justice, the paper attempts to assess the association between walking and spatial justice using three dimensionsspatial, modal and individual dimensions-that are used as a framework to assess how injustices unfold and are experienced by Nairobi's pedestrians. The historical path dependency that has restricted and attempted to replace walkability by prioritizing motor vehicle use as well as the technical engineering design that lacks integration of social aspects of mobility has presented challenges in provision of safe non-motorized infrastructure in the contemporary urban travel in Nairobi, enduringly dismissing walking as a valid mode of mobility. Advancing spatial justice in Nairobi's urban mobility will require more than a technical process of extending the side of the road by a metre or two but rather deliberate effort in understanding the pedestrians' mobility needs that can best be understood by attuning to the everyday realities of travelling on foot.

Urban Planning

Twenty-minute neighbourhoods highlight the importance of well-connected and mixed-used neighbourhoods and communities with proximate access to employment, essential services, public transport, and open spaces. Shorter distances together with re-prioritised public spaces encourage more active transport choices, resulting in public health benefits and reduced environmental pollution. Higher liveability brought about by mixed-use developments enables people to have equitable access to local facilities, amenities, and employment opportunities, promoting vibrancy, social cohesion, and intergenerational connections. The attributes of 20-minute neighbourhoods also combine to create places, that are acknowledged as friendly for all ages, address changing needs across the life course, and provide better support for the ageing population. Furthermore, there are indications that 20-minute neighbourhoods may be more resilient against many of the negative impacts of stringent public health proto...

Youth

Our paper investigates Belgian young peoples’ discussions about climate change, specifically how they distance themselves from various dimensions related to climate issues. The study includes a pluridisciplinary analysis combining sociological, linguistic and semiotic approaches to process textual data collected in 2022 from six focus groups organised within local youth associations. This study focuses on 33 socially and economically diverse young people who joined a youth club. The paper explores the strategies employed by the respondents to distance themselves from climate change issues. It sheds light on various aspects related to climate distancing: How young people embody their vision of climate change through voice-switching, how societal norms and beliefs influence them, how they perceive the global impact of the changes, and how education plays a role in the issue of climate change. The study highlights the barriers, paradoxes and conflicts that hinder young people’s active ...

Quantifying Quality of Life

Transportation has been recently recognized as a key element in the study of individual Quality of Life (QoL). However, relatively little is known about the interconnectedness between various transport dimensions and wellbeing measures. In scoping the existing literature, the chapter identifies studies reporting on a link between one of the seven transport indicators (mobility, affordability, accessibility, connectivity, externality, travel needs, and attitudes) and QoL. Based on the scoping review, a conceptual framework (TRAWEL) was deductively developed to understand wellbeing measures in five broader dimensions of transportation: transportation infrastructure, the built environment, and transport externalities at a societal level, travel and time use, and travel satisfaction at the individual level. Furthermore, the data requirements for accurate quantification and the possible study groups of interest are also discussed. The chapter concludes by summarizing the key points of th...

Sustainability, 2021

Recent studies have shown that gender is the personal aspect that mostly affects mobility patterns and travel behaviors. It has been observed, for instance, that female perception of unsafety and insecurity when traveling using public transport forces them to make unwanted travel choices, such as avoiding traveling at certain times of day and to specific destinations. In order to improve the attractiveness of public transport services, this gender gap must not be overlooked. This paper aims at contributing to research in gendered mobility by investigating differences in safety and security perceptions in railway stations, and by identifying which policies could be effective in bridging any existing gap. The methodology includes the collection of disaggregate data through a mixed Revealed Preference/Stated Preference survey, and the estimation of fixed and random parameters behavioral models. Results from a medium-sized Italian railway station show that female travelers feel safer in...

Sustainability

Transportation equity is vital for the fulfillment of citizens’ activities. To make better decisions for transportation planning, it is appropriate to have a method to evaluate each mode and assign an equity score to it. This paper aims to propose a method to assess the level of equity using different transportation modes in each zone of a city. Here, the equity level takes into account on one side the proportion between the frequency of long and short-distance trips, the volume-to-capacity ratio of streets, the air quality, and the parking availability. On the other side, the ratio of costs associated with using passenger cars, the average income of the residents, and transit and cycling infrastructure quality is used in a zone of a city. In this regard, at first, indicators are considered to assess the condition of buses, cycling, and passenger cars. Then, the Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) is used to determine the level of equity for each mode. The method has been applied to regula...

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 2021

Purpose Draws from the equity theory and customer equity literature, this study aims to argue that the implementation of contactless service as an innovative service design in the hospitality industry can generate customers’ emotional attachment and cognitive evaluation of the brand. Design/methodology/approach This study uses partial least squares modeling and data from a large-scale survey of hotel guests who have experienced contactless service in mainland China. The authors performed an importance-performance map analysis to evaluate the significance of critical variables and constructs by including the performance dimension. Findings Customer equity is a three-dimensional higher-order construct that embraces value-, brand- and relationship equity. A pleasant experience of contactless service in hospitality encounters generates a positive effect on customer equity and delight. Additionally, increased customer equity improves satisfaction and trust. Practical implications This st...

Frontiers in digital health, 2023

Transportation Research Part A-policy and Practice, 2020

Bike-sharing systems can be implemented to complete the coverage of public transport networks which could be insufficient to serve an entire urban area. Some methodologies that maximise coverage or accessibility are suggested in the literature. In this paper, we propose a bike-sharing stations location model that includes not only these issues but also equality aspects. The model aims to minimise inequalities in bicycle-public transport mobility among observed population groups trying to maintain specified levels of accessibility and coverage at the same time. We evaluated the performance of the model on a test network and carried out a sensitivity analysis according to the available budget. The results showed that maximising accessibility or coverage alone, without considering equality, may lead to an unequal distribution of accessibility among the population, producing discrimination between different groups. The outcomes of the application revealed the significance of the model in evaluating equality in the network design phase for achieving not only a satisfactory bike-sharing system and public transport multimodal accessibility of each zone but also a high equality measure among the considered population groups. Budget availability also played an essential role since a minimum budget value is needed to achieve higher levels of equality. The proposed approach could serve transport and public authorities as a decision support system in planning future investment as well as promoting multimodal mobility because it links bike-sharing stations with stops/stations of the public transport lines networks.

Sensors, 2021

Existing public transport (PT) planning methods use a trip-based approach, rather than a user-based approach, leading to neglecting equity. In other words, the impacts of regular users—i.e., users with higher trip rates—are overrepresented during analysis and modelling because of higher trip rates. In contrast to the existing studies, this study aims to show the actual demand characteristic and users’ share are different in daily and monthly data. For this, 1-month of smart card data from the Kocaeli, Turkey, was evaluated by means of specific variables, such as boarding frequency, cardholder types, and the number of users, as well as a breakdown of the number of days traveled by each user set. Results show that the proportion of regular PT users to total users in 1 workday, is higher than the monthly proportion of regular PT users to total users. Accordingly, users who have 16–21 days boarding frequency are 16% of the total users, and yet they have been overrepresented by 39% in th...