Transport problems that matter - social and psychological links to transport disadvantage

This paper presents an analysis exploring self-reported measures of transport disadvantage and how these relate to social exclusion and well-being in Melbourne, Australia. A sample of 535 individuals sourced from a household survey explores ratings of 18 types of transport problems. The questionnaire also measured social exclusion represented in five dimensions including income, unemployment, political engagement, participation in activities and social support networks. Well-being was also measured adopting standard psychological measures of ‘Satisfaction with Life’, ‘Personal Well-being Index,’ ‘Positive Affect’ and ‘Negative Affect’.A factor analysis of self-reported transport difficulties identified four statistically significant sub-scales (‘transport disadvantage’, ‘transit disadvantage’, ‘Vulnerable/Impaired’ and ‘rely on others’) which together account for 57% of the variance in the responses.Analysis established that those with high self-reported transport problems were more likely to be located in fringe and remote parts of the city and lived in areas where it was not possible to walk to a local shop. However all groups made an average number of trips per day (except the ‘Vulnerable/Impaired’ group which make fewer trips) suggesting that self-reported transport disadvantage is unrelated to realised mobility. Analysis further established that only the ‘Vulnerable/Impaired’ group was associated with social exclusion and that they also had the lowest values of well-being compared to other groups.Overall findings confirm the methodological concerns associated with the use of self-reported measures of transport problems as a basis for defining transport disadvantage. The majority of those with high self-reported transport problems did not travel less than the survey sample as a whole and they were not associated with social exclusion. However the ‘Vulnerable/Impaired’ group was the exception, displaying a significantly higher association with social exclusion and lower well-being.The findings suggest which aspects of transport disadvantage are likely to be of greater concern for social policy. A concentration of research and policy on issues and social groups associated with the ‘Vulnerable/Impaired’ factor would be more effective in reducing social exclusion. Transport problems associated with this group including physical access to transport, knowing where to go and feeling safe from theft or attack when travelling may deserve higher priorities for attention. In addition those associated with the ‘Vulnerable/Impaired’ factor including older retired females and those who are more likely to be looking after someone with an illness or disability are clearly a high risk group and should warrant positive discrimination in transport and social policy.     

Transportation conditions and access to services in a context of urban sprawl and deregulation. The case of Dar es Salaam

Major deficiencies in urbanisation and transportation systems are reinforcing patterns of social and urban segregation in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city. Analysis of the 1993 Human Resources Development Survey shows that there are numerous obstacles to the daily travel of the city's inhabitants, notably the poor. These barriers weigh heavily on schedules, complicate access to services ever further, limit the use of urban space, and place considerable pressure on household budgets. Consequently, the poorest individuals tend to retreat into their neighbourhood where the low-quality urban facilities are unable to assist in the development of human and social capital and economic opportunities, the alleviation of poverty or the prevention of social exclusion.     

Social exclusion, location and transport disadvantage amongst non-driving seniors in a Melbourne municipality, Australia

Over the past decade, researchers have refocused their attention upon the interconnection between locationally disadvantaged communities and poor transport services in order to better understand social exclusion. Limited access to private and public transport has often been identified as a major contributing factor to social isolation and economic poverty that certain groups in the community experience. To date, an insufficient amount of research attention has focused on the elderly or seniors, who are often identified as being subject to social exclusion because of difficulties associated with travelling outside their homes to access services and facilities especially for non-car drivers. Moreover, a disproportionate amount of research undertaken on transport related forms of social exclusion in Australia has understandably looked towards the outskirts of its major urban centres, where services and facilities are sparsely located and generally only accessible by car. This paper provides a different insight by analysing a middle distant municipality where large spatial concentrations of seniors are to be found, some of whom do not have ready access to a car or have difficulty accessing the public bus service. Using a variety of data sources for a municipality in Melbourne, this case study reveals that social exclusion of non-car driving seniors is reinforced by a regional public transport system that cannot adequately service the entire municipality. For now, the incidence of locational and transport related disadvantage is restricted to small pockets of the municipality, but as seniors age and surrender their car driving licences this problem could become more serious. The study concludes by calling for more analyses to be undertaken into transport engendered social exclusion if this problem is to be contained as the post-war baby-boomers generation ages across most of the middle suburbs of Australian cities.     

Making the connections between transport disadvantage and the social exclusion of low income populations in the Tshwane Region of South Africa

To date, the majority of studies which consider transport from a social exclusion perspective have been conducted in the context of the developed world where both income poverty and lack of transport are relative rather absolute states. In a unique departure from these previous studies, this paper explores the relationship between transport and social disadvantage in the development context, the key difference being that income poverty is absolute and where there is much lower access to both private and public transportation generally. Thus, it seeks to explore whether the concept of social exclusion remains valid, when it is the majority of the population that is experiencing transport and income poverty compared with the minority who do so in advanced economies.The paper is based on a scoping study for the Republic of South Africa Department of Transport (RSA DOT), which primarily involved focus group discussions with a range of socially deprived urban and peri-urban population groups living in the Tshwane region of South Africa. In a second departure from previous studies which consider transport and social disadvantage in the development context, the study takes a primarily urban focus. The rationale for this is that theoretically low income urban settlements do not suffer from the lack of transport infrastructure and motorised transport services in the way that more remote rural areas do. The policy issue is therefore less a question of addressing a deficit in supply and more one of addressing particular aspects of public transit service failure, which are more readily amenable to relatively low cost, manageable, small-scale national and local policy interventions.A primary aim for the study was to reinvigorate cross-government debate of these issues in the hope of breaking South African government’s long-standing and persistent policy inertia in the delivery of equitable and socially sustainable urban transport systems.     

Activity spaces: measures of social exclusion?

The paper provides a first investigation of the suitability of different measures of activity space size to identify persons at risk of social exclusion. This would be a new departure for the measurement of social exclusion, which so far has relied either on aggregate measures of locations or cross-sectional data of individuals.The size of a person's activity space can only be estimated with information reflecting a longer time horizon. In this paper the six-week travel diary survey (Mobidrive) is used, which was conducted in two German cities in 1999. About 95% of all local trips were coded for 300 respondents (about 45,000 trips).The paper develops three possible measurement approaches of increasing complexity (confidence ellipse, kernel density estimates, shortest paths networks). The analysis revealed that the main driver of the size of the activity spaces is the overall number of unique locations visited by the respondents and to a lesser extent, their socio-demographic characteristics. In particular, the groups most often consider to be at risk of social exclusion (female, lower income, elderly) did not show significantly different activity spaces.     

Using accessibility measures to integrate land use and transport policy in Edinburgh and the Lothians

To ensure more effective integration of development and transport planning, new national planning policy guidance in the UK requires greater consideration of accessibility issues. Although quantitative accessibility analysis is common in research, the practical application of these techniques in land use planning has been rare, and assessment has been restricted to qualitative considerations. The strong policy focus on accessibility increases the need for robustness, but practical quantitative techniques are still evolving. This paper describes a structured approach to accessibility analysis, as part of the development of a new structure plan for Edinburgh and the Lothians, and demonstrates how an ‘integration index’ can be developed from accessibility measures to help compare alternative approaches.     

Transport metabolism, social diversity and equity: The case of São Paulo, Brazil

The movement of people in space implies the consumption of resources such as time, space, money and energy, as well as the production of negative externalities such as accidents, pollution and congestion. Some of these effects have been analyzed on an aggregate level by comparing regions in the world, a set of selected cities and different geographical areas in a particular city. The analysis of data on a more disaggregate level that considers the differences in the cause and continuance of negative transport externalities among social classes and groups living in a particular city in the developing world is rare.This paper uses the São Paulo Metropolitan Region (SPMR) 1997 origin–destination (OD) survey to investigate such phenomenon by taking advantage of the fact that data are divided according to six levels of household income. Results refer to mobility patterns in workable days.The main conclusions are that although people at the lowest income level spend a high share of their income on transport, they have a very low overall mobility and contribute almost nothing to transport externalities. At the other extreme, the two highest income groups that use cars intensively invest much more time, space and money to travel around and so contribute to transport externalities 8.4–15.2 times more than the lowest income group. Such large differences challenge current transport policies in developing countries and call both for a reassessment of assumptions and principles as well as for opposition to the propagation of myths that have sustained such inequitable policies.     

Transport biofuels in the European Union: The state of play

The implementation of the Biofuels Directive (2003/30/EC) in 25 member states is assessed here. Implementation problems are identified and analysed for the purpose of suggesting a way forward for biofuels policy in the European Union. Three main patterns are observed: effective implementation, formal compliance and weak implementation. Problems encountered in the policy process are both of a practical and more fundamental nature, i.e., due to a lack of consensus on the priority of competing policy objectives and disagreement on the suitability of first-generation biofuels for reaching the objectives. In this situation, stronger enforcement of targets does not appear to be a constructive way forward. Based on our analysis, we argue that the European Union should instead, and in agreement with the principle of subsidiarity, allow member states more flexibility.     

铁路运输生产结合部安全问题改进对策探讨

铁路运输生产结合部安全对于保障铁路的安全运营具有重要作用,建立完善铁路运输生产结合部安全问题协调机制能够有效降低安全风险。分别从铁路内部结合部问题和外部结合部问题2个方面,分析铁路运输生产过程中的结合部安全问题,探析结合部安全问题意识、结合部管理安全职责、结合部安全问题协调制度、结合部安全问题闭环整治机制以及结合部安全问题源头性手段等原因,从健全完善结合部安全问题协调机制和施策推动结合部安全问题治理2个方面提出改进对策。     

Changing trip behavior in a higher education institution: The role of parking fees

Higher education institutions are major trip-generating locations and the transportation to and from them has negative environmental influences. To discourage car owners from solo driving and encourage them to use more environmentally friendly travel modes, it is important to understand what factors influence their travel mode choice. Using a discrete choice model, we examined the motivations to leave the car at home, with and without parking fee. Besides parking fees, we examined the effects of other variables known to predict commuting choice, such as time and social discomfort, pro-environmental attitudes, reduced vehicle maintenance expenses and awareness of alternative commuting options. Results show that adding a parking fee not only increased the tendency to leave the car at home, it also influenced the relative weight given to the considerations that determine to leave the car at home. Specifically, after the introduction of a parking fee, the previously significant impacts of pro-environmental attitudes and social discomfort on leaving the car at home became non-significant, and the impacts of other, more instrumental factors (e.g., time discomfort, costs related to car ownership and maintenance, time wasted searching for a parking space and in traffic jams) which were insignificant beforehand, became the significant predictors. Parking fees were found to be effective and can change to accommodate different policies (revenue collection, pollution reduction, and students’ discomfort). The implications of such a study are the trade-off between monetary (parking fee) and non-monetary variables to accommodate more sustainable traffic management.     

A spatial analysis of air transport access and the essential air service program in the United States

In the United States, the goal of essential air service (EAS) is to provide a minimum level of air transport service from smaller, often remote communities to the national network. While supporters of EAS tout the economic benefits of connecting rural and isolated communities, critics cite high costs, low use and antiquated eligibility requirements as factors which compromise the value of the program. In this paper, a comprehensive database of US airports is combined with network analysis techniques and a geographic information system to evaluate population access (at the census tract level) to EAS airports for 2006. Results suggest that redundant coverage of EAS market areas by alternative Federal Aviation Administration designated hub airports can contribute to EAS airport market leakage and that alternative definitions of EAS community eligibility have the potential to dramatically increase programmatic efficiency and reduce federal monies spent on EAS subsidies.     

A ticket to ride: Evolving landscapes of air travel accessibility in the United States

During the past decade, air passenger service in the United States has been exposed to numerous carrier bankruptcies, antitrust investigations, mergers, labor problems and a massive increase in competition. These internal elements, combined with the rising costs of fuel and the threat of terrorism combine to make a relatively uncertain air travel landscape for both passengers and operators. Moreover, these dynamics have generated significant geographical shifts in airline route structures and airports serviced by commercial carriers. These factors, combined with increasing levels of consumer access to fare and routing information, have altered the landscape of air travel accessibility in the United States. The purpose of this paper is to examine issues of consumer air travel accessibility through an analysis of three critical measures: flight segments, flight time and ticket costs. In addition, a typology of air passenger accessibility is generated for the 156 busiest commercial airports in the United States using these three measures. Results suggest significant local and regional biases in time and cost, relative to distance, for many US markets.     

SeMS and sensibility: Security management systems and the management of risk in the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority

Following International Air Transportation Association requirement for all member airlines and airports to have a security management system (SeMS) beginning 1 March 2007, many organizations are looking to learn from safety and quality management systems. Without specific guidelines or best practices, organizations are forced to imitate these processes designed for different goals. Since safety, quality, and security environments operate on radically different principles, SeMS implementation must take a different tack. The case of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority illustrates the importance of a custom-designed program that meets public and corporate needs. The Authority is responsible for security screening of passengers, non-passengers, and baggage within selected airports. As a crown corporation with a precise statutory mandate and regulatory environment, the development of a SeMS illustrates some of the key problems for the application of SeMS to larger organizations.     

Looking over the horizon: Transport and reduced CO2 emissions in the UK by 2030

Transport is a major user of carbon-based fuels, and achievement of the targets set at the Kyoto Protocol and elsewhere means that the EU and national governments must reduce CO₂ emissions in all sectors, including transport. This paper reports on a recently completed study for the UK government on the options available to meet a 60% CO₂ reduction target by 2030 in the UK transport sector. The study follows a backcasting study approach, developing a business as usual baseline for transport emissions, and two alternative scenarios to 2030. Different policy measures are assessed and assembled into mutually supporting policy packages (PP). Although 2030 seems a long way ahead, action must be taken now if the targets for CO₂ reduction are to be met. The achievement of a carbon-efficient transport future, combined with holding travel levels at present levels, is likely to be very difficult. A major transformation in the way transport and urban planning is carried out is required. As transport and urban planners, we need to think very differently in tackling the new environmental and liveability imperative.     

Evaluating the European added value of TEN-T projects: a methodological proposal based on spatial spillovers, accessibility and GIS

This paper develops a methodology for calculating the European value added value (EVA) generated by transport infrastructure projects. This approach is particularly useful for evaluating projects in the framework of Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T), although it may also be used in trans-national projects in other geographical areas. The methodology is based on the appraisal of spatial spillovers generated by trans-national projects by using accessibility indicators (access to markets) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Projects are split into sections and spillover effects of each section are then computed. The sections that produce a high proportion of spillovers in relation to internal benefits generate a high EVA. Additionally, indicators are obtained of the effects of each section in terms of spatial concentration on the different countries affected, efficiency (general improvement in accessibility) and territorial cohesion (reduction in accessibility disparities between regions). The validity of this approach is verified by applying it to TEN-T priority project 25. This methodology does not seek to replace existing project appraisal methodologies (particularly the cost-benefit analysis); rather it provides complementary data for decision-making. Sections which are scarcely profitable from the cost-benefit analysis perspective but which have high European value added should receive more European funding than more profitable sections of markedly national interest.     

Transport infrastructure development and changing spatial accessibility in the Greater Pearl River Delta, China, 1990–2020

This paper analyses the accessibility implications of the development of expressways and inter-city railways in the Greater Pearl River Delta (GPRD) over the period 1990–2020. Average travel time was firstly reduced by expressway development; and it will be reduced further by the introduction of the inter-city rail system in 2011. The unevenness in regional accessibility remained relatively high during the initial stage of expressway development, but later expansion brought more balanced accessibility landscapes. The first stage (2010–2020) of inter-city railway development will raise the accessibility inequality. Its later effects, however, remain to be seen. Convenience in transport connections is associated with the spatial pattern of industrialization. In addition, accessibility improvement is tied to the direction of city-region development, as exemplified by Guangzhou’s choice of Nansha, the city’s outer port, as development focus.     

Policy in motion: reassembling carbon pricing policy development in the personal transport sector in British Columbia

British Columbia’s carbon tax is an example of a relatively systemic climate pricing policy in the North American transport sector. This research uses Actor-Network Theory to retrace and reassemble the development of the tax from inception to implementation. From the fieldwork, six stages of the policy development process emerged, beginning with the surfacing of the concept of tax shifting in 1998 to the implementation of a carbon tax in 2008. This article explores how British Columbia’s experience aligns with lessons from the carbon taxation literature relating to a range of themes including education, leadership, timing, administration, taxation level, revenue allocation and communication.     

An evaluation of the transport to employment (T2E) scheme in Highland Scotland using social return on investment (SROI)

This paper presents findings from an evaluation of transport to employment (T2E) in rural Highland Scotland. T2E is a centrally co-ordinated shared transport service which provides access to workplace, training and childcare where no alternative transport is available. The paper assesses the social as well as economic impacts on the local community through social return on investment (SROI) analysis. Measurable social benefits were found to outweigh the investment by 3:1 suggesting the concept to be a viable solution in a climate where public transport options are limited and typically restricted by low density and dispersed populations and challenging conditions for delivery.