Lack of transport opportunities creates vulnerability in climate change
The Fair Accessibility project draws attention to the fact that people have completely different conditions to participate in and contribute to reducing emissions from transport in order to achieve climate goals. There is a big difference between those who live in cities and those who live in rural areas, but factors that influence are also differences in economic conditions and the ability to work remotely. Lack of mobility options, difficulties in accessing services and lack of access to affordable transport are reasons why people fall into what is referred to as 'transport poverty'. The results were reported in Trivecteur Traffics webinar “From Transport Poverty to Fair Accessibility”.
- A background to the Fair Accessibility project was that we saw that there is insufficient knowledge about who uses different mobility solutions and transport services, for example on the basis of gender, age and socioeconomics. Methods were also needed to involve people with different needs and experiences in the development of solutions, to ensure that they correspond to actual needs,” says Åsa Hult from IVL Swedish Environmental Institute.
In the project, Trivector Traffic has, IVL Swedish Environmental Institute and VTI National Road and Transport Research Institute conducted a survey based on focus groups with people living in and around Vilhelmina, Orsa and Sjöbo in 2022 and 2023. The groups were put together taking into account that young people, the elderly, low-income people, immigrants, people with disabilities and rural residents may be at greater risk of transport poverty. The Mobility Labs method used has been developed by Trivector and involves residents as co-creators and at the same time scientists are on site to experience the problems. Focus groups with young people, older people, SFI students and commuters in the various localities were supplemented by interviews with officials nationally, regionally and locally. In addition, a co-creation workshop was held per locality with representatives of the different target groups and officials at local and regional level.
The three resorts are of course different in many ways but also turned out to have great similarities. They all had good accessibility with short distances for those who want to walk or cycle inside the main resort. There was also relatively good public transport with the ability to travel to other major resorts from the main resort. On the other hand, for those living outside the city itself, basic public transport was less accessible, especially during the daytime, and with deficiencies in quality with many cancellations and delays. The cycling infrastructure outside the city was not developed and cycling was perceived as unsafe. Longer trips to other places (hospitals, upper secondary schools, etc.) than the central city often took a very long time to do with public transport. An important conclusion of the project is that, for example, age, economy and social network create significant differences in the opportunities different people have to deal with challenges related to everyday transport and that it is important not to consider all rural residents as a homogeneous group.
The work resulted in a series of proposals on how to tackle transport poverty. An example is to organise society for better accessibility so that it is appropriate to consider where it is appropriate to place, for example, a refugee centre, school or care based on transport facilities. Other measures could include allowing the service to reach citizens, working on digital hybrid solutions where care recipients can get help from the home service with digital contact with the doctor, digital teaching to increase the range of training courses, and a local community service office to help residents with digital contacts against the authorities. On the part of public transport, there would be an increase in the range of trips, coordination with healthcare (calling certain groups when there are buses or arranging a tour-eater day a week), better call-controlled traffic, increased simplicity to increase usability for those who are not familiar with technology, and increased quality in exchange and delivery. Ideas about bus freight, better opportunities for shipping goods and opportunities to borrow, for example, a cargo bike were also highlighted.
- Accessibility is not only mobility, but also having access to something, says Emma Lund from Trivector Traffic. Good accessibility can be achieved in various ways — of course through mobility, but also the local service offering and digital solutions provide opportunities. We need to work on all three of these elements. We also need to bear in mind that ill-considered decisions can create transport poverty. It is good to do an impact analysis from an accessibility perspective before making big decisions. This could involve an analysis of what happens if you close down a health centre or a school, if you place a refugee accommodation where there is no access to transport, or if you put down lines in public transport, raise fares or remove stops. Our recommendation is to talk to those affected at an early stage. Public transport is a lifeline for these groups and creates great benefit!
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Here you will find more about Fair accessibility project on Trivector's website