New ways of dealing with social consequences and needs in public transport planning? : A review of methods and research gaps

• The planning of public transport systems has for a long time prioritised the so-called high demand- routes (routes that have the most passengers). This may have negative consequences for certain groups of users and their accessibility. The public transport industry sees, due to the traditional prioritisation of high demand-routes, a need for knowledge of, and greater consideration for, social aspects and the needs of different user groups. This presentation presents a review of the rich international research literature on public transport accessibility, covering methods to be used to be used when deciding if and when a greater emphasis should be given to meeting the mobility needs of disadvantaged passenger groups or providing geographical equity and how toconsider mitigation in situations with negative social impacts. It also identifies research gaps related to the above topic based on practical experiences of public transport planning in Swedish Public transport authorities.The literature searches were carried out in databases such as Scopus. A qualitative synthesis of the literature is presented. The results are discussed and compared with experience of actual knowledge needs in planning based on interviews with officers. There are methods for estimating accessibility, and methods for determining the extent to which improved accessibility actually leads to groups taking part in more activities or not. For example, the literature often provides methods for assessing accessibility in time and space by analyzing accessibility in terms of reachability to jobs or services by public transport in a city, or by formulating a method that is first used to evaluate the supply side of public transport services in a city, which is then compared with demographic and spatial distributions of the population (for example divided by age, ethnicity, education, income or access to a car) in order to produce transit gap indexes. This means that research contribute knowledge about existing public transport systems and the effects of investments including how to direct them to places and groups in greatest need.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Transportteknik och logistik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Transport Systems and Logistics (hsv//eng)

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)