Elsevier

Research in Transportation Economics

Volume 69, September 2018, Pages 482-488
Research in Transportation Economics

A broader perspective on social outcomes in transport

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2018.03.006Get rights and content

Abstract

While the importance of including the interface between transport and the social environment has been acknowledged in the past few decades, application of this remains limited in transport policy and project evaluations. At present, consideration is largely given to impacts of the infrastructure construction and future operation on people living in the vicinity, without looking at social outcomes in terms of personal/societal wellbeing, nor the economic impact of the changes in these conditions. New research has added a further dimension to the social impact of transport, the value that may be added in rural communities. This relates to the leadership role adopted by some bus operators, and their willingness to support the good functioning and vibrancy of their local communities, with important social and economic outcomes that should be included in both CBA evaluations and taken into account in bus service contracts. The authors argue that it is important that these wider benefits are taken into account in transport evaluations, broadening the potential value to both encompass social and associated economic outcomes.

Introduction

In Europe, Australia and to a lesser extent North America, transport planning has been dominated by the economic paradigm for many decades. This has seen extensive valuable research undertaken into costs and benefits of transport infrastructure and services, with a focus on quantification in money terms. From relatively humble beginnings valuing time and fuel savings expected from road improvements, for example, the practice of transport planning and project/policy appraisal has developed considerably, now frequently including (for example) assessment of wider economic benefits (WEB) and environmental impacts computed in monetary terms (e.g. through health impacts). Laird and Venables (2017) recently outlined the circumstances in which WEB might be relevant to project appraisal, with a focus on what they call context specific appraisal, a subject to which we return on frequent occasions. Their focus was on context specific economic evaluation, noting that social and environmental matters were beyond their scope.

Government urban land use transport strategies usually elaborate some variant of triple bottom line (TBL) outcome goals, such as:

  • improve economic productivity

  • reduce social exclusion

  • lower environmental footprint,

with health/safety outcomes sometimes listed separately and sometimes included within the TBL. Yet when it comes to transport planning and policy, two of the three legs seem to be somewhat stunted. Strategic transport plans and project appraisals, for example, commonly report expected marginal environmental changes, such as reductions in greenhouse gas emissions or particulate emissions, but are seldom designed to deliver what might be seen as sustainable long term environmental outcomes, such as GHG emissions consistent with commitments made at the 2015 UN Paris Climate Change Conference (COP 21). Thus Australia, for example, is committed to reducing its GHG emissions by 26–28% on 2005 levels by 2030 but we are not aware of any Australian urban land use transport strategy that shows how this will be achieved, with respect to its transport component, one of the largest sources of Australian GHG emissions.

Of the three legs of the TBL, the social is the weakest in terms of representation in transport planning and policy. Pickup and Guilano (2005), for example, argue that:

While the two policy areas [transport policy and social policy] are clearly inter-related, there appears to be an absence of dialogue between the transport profession (trying to clarify the link between transport strategies and social exclusion) and mainstream social policy makers, who currently pay scant attention to transport related issues. (Pickup & Guilano, 2005, p. 40).

In somewhat similar vein, Geurs, Boon, and Van Wee (2009) list a range of potential social impacts in the assessment of transport infrastructure projects, noting that they are ignored, but they do not mention social outcomes. They also note, however, that the social importance of transport has been of research interest. The Social Exclusion Unit (2003), for example, stated that 40% of job seekers in the UK reported a lack of personal transport or poor public transport was a crucial barrier to getting a job.

A recent report by KPMG notes that:

Whilst much has been done over the last 10 years to improve our understanding of the wider economic impacts of transport investment and policy decisions, much less has been done to develop a better understanding of the wider social and environmental impacts of transport investment and policy decisions (KPMG, 2016, p.5).

It would seem that little has changed. The new environmental effects statement for the planned West Gate Freeway in Melbourne (Victorian Government, 2017) discusses the impact of the freeway construction and operation on the community through which it passes, but does not mention the social outcomes likely to be associated with this new infrastructure.

Some efforts over the past decade to increase the focus on the social leg, such as research by two of the current authors (e.g. Stanley, Hensher, Stanley, & Vella-Brodrick, 2011, 2012), and new research by the third author (reported in this paper) has developed connections between transport/mobility and a range of indicators of inclusion and wellbeing, and the role of the transport provider in rural settings in contributing to stronger communities. These findings are summarised in Sections 2 Key literature on social outcomes from transport, 3 The place of transport in achieving social outcomes, 4 The social impact of the transport operator on their local rural community. Some of this work has been expressed in monetary terms, to increase the opportunity for its inclusion in economic cost-benefit analysis, as a valuable transport contribution to wellbeing (understood in this setting as economic welfare). As demonstrated in Stanley and Hensher (2011) and Stanley and Stanley (2007), such monetisation enables economically-based social safety-net public transport service levels to be developed, bridging in some ways the social and economic legs in the TBL. Any such monetisation, however, should not distract attention away from the social outcomes that are being, or could be, pursued through transport policy and planning. Our experience is that these social outcomes are not widely recognised or understood.

The purpose of the current paper is to elaborate our understanding of social outcomes from transport, particularly public transport, and to illustrate ways in which such social outcomes might be more effectively represented in transport policy, planning and project appraisal. This inevitably shifts attention towards the policy/project generation level and away from impact assessment (of initiatives that may have little or no grounding in desired social outcomes). In our view, too much transport appraisal/evaluation research and application is in the impact assessment area and not nearly enough thought is given to the ultimate societal purposes which the initiatives being assessed are intended to achieve. This is the stuff of project generation, the main focus of the current paper and a clear illustration of the call for context specific assessment.

US legislation in areas such as civil rights, disabilities and environmental justice, goes some way towards placing social outcomes at the policy/project generation stage in that country (Rosenbloom, 2007). At the delivery end, however, there is little demonstrated understanding of social outcomes as purposeful goals in most US urban land use transport plans. This is evidenced by the low-level treatment of accessibility in such plans noted by Boisjoly and El-Geneidy (2017), accessibility being a key influencer of social outcome formation.

Section 2 elaborates our understanding of social outcomes from urban transport, with a primary focus on public transport, summarising key literature in the field and illustrating application. Section 3 outlines research by two of us on connections between mobility, social inclusion and wellbeing, a central contributor to what most urban land use transport plans suggest as their social goal (social inclusion). Some of the policy and planning implications of that research are presented. Section 4 explores a new social research area for transport, that of the contribution which a transport provider might make to their community. We are not aware of this social outcome having previously been included as an influence on transport policy and planning, other than perhaps in a de facto sense through the continuation of negotiated contracts with existing private service providers for local/regional public transport services. Section 5 presents the paper's conclusions.

Section snippets

Key literature on social outcomes from transport

The social impact of the ability to be mobile has been of research interest in the past couple of decades. This includes topics such as the role of transport in social inclusion, the importance of accessibility, the interface between social capital and transport, the place of transport in meeting human needs, the influence of transport on personal wellbeing and health, and a new contribution as to how the organization and governance arrangements of transport can influence the local community,

The place of transport in achieving social outcomes

One of the main purposes of government policy and action is to meet personal and societal needs in circumstances of market failure where there is a common good to be achieved. This common good is sometimes embedded in the concept of a social welfare function (SWF). A SWF describes what outcomes are valued by the society and should include some information about socially acceptable trade-offs between valued outcomes. Thus, policy needs to consider collective goals and distributional outcomes and

The social impact of the transport operator on their local rural community

A further phenomenon that realises a social impact on the assessment of transport projects is a transport operator's contribution to community prosperity. Lowe (2016) explores the social contribution of various bus operator governance models in the Australian bus and coach industry by identifying and placing a monetary value on the ways in which family and non-family firms interact with their communities and contribute towards community prosperity.

Some scholars have written of community

Conclusions

While the importance of public transport to the achievement of social outcomes has been recognised for many years now, there has been little incorporation of these in transport projects and evaluations. While this is pointed out in the literature, such as by a review of social inclusion and transport by the European Union (Lodovici & Torichio, 2015), the concept of social outcomes remains limited and short-sited. This paper argues that it is important that social outcomes, the subject of this

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