Distributive justice and equity in transportation

By R. H. M. Pereira, Tim Schwanen, David Banister. 2016

862 citations recorded by the source corpus.

ABSTRACT Over the past decades, transport researchers and policy-makers have devoted increasing attention to questions about justice and equity. Nonetheless, there is still little engagement with theories in political philosophy to frame what justice means in the context of transport policies. This paper reviews key theories of justice (utilitarianism, libertarianism, intuitionism, Rawls’ egalitarianism, and Capability Approaches (CAs)) and critically evaluates the insights they generate when applied to transport. Based on a combination of Rawlsian and CAs, we propose that distributive justice concerns over transport disadvantage and social exclusion should focus primarily on accessibility as a human capability. This means that, in policy evaluation, a detailed analysis of the distributional effects of transport policies should take account of the setting of minimum standards of accessibility to key destinations and the extent to which these policies respect individuals’ rights and prioritise disadvantaged groups, reduce inequalities of opportunities, and mitigate transport externalities. A full account of justice in transportation requires a more complete understanding of accessibility than traditional approaches have been able to deliver to date.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Sociology and Political Science, Transportation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/418f7e40875f328021c449a8341348547ff3abbf

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Citations in the corpus

Transport equity analysis (2017, background): “This is followed by the theoretical review of Rafael Pereira et al. (2017) of various justice theories and their potential application in transportation that is continued by Nahmias-Biran et al. (2017) who also suggest a practical application.”
Future accessibility impacts of transport policy scenarios: Equity and sensitivity to travel time thresholds for Bus Rapid Transit expansion in Rio de Janeiro (2019, neutral): “Finally, the TransBrasil corridor stands out as a far more equitable investment that promotes larger accessibility gains for lower-income areas when compared to the accessibility impacts of the other recent transport investments in Rio de Janeiro (Pereira, 2018; Pereira, Banister, et al., 2017b).”
Distributional effects of transport policies on inequalities in access to opportunities in Rio de Janeiro (2019, methodology): “Previous studies have proposed to use Rawls’ principles of justice to guide and assess transport policies (Pereira et al., 2017; van Wee & Geurs, 2011; van Wee & Roeser, 2013) and urban planning more generally (Basta, 2015; Fainstein, 2010; McKay, Murray, & Macintyre, 2012).”