Developing a national transport poverty index for Canada
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Keywords: Transport, social exclusion, transport poverty, transport index
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract
Authors:
Maria Laura Guerrero Balarezo, Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering Polytechnique Montréal and CIRRELT
Geneviève Boisjoly, Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering Polytechnique Montréal and CIRRELT
Martin Trépanier, Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering Polytechnique Montréal and CIRRELT
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Abstract
Transport poverty touches diverse dimensions, among them the lack of options suited to the individual’s physical condition and capabilities (Mobility poverty), the lack of destinations to fulfil daily activity needs to maintain a reasonable quality of life (Accessibility poverty), an imbalance in transport costs within the household income (Affordability), excessive amount of time travelling (Time poverty), etc. Transport poverty causes Transport Related Social Exclusion (TRSE), inaccessibility to social and economic opportunities and services as consequence. Indices allow to quantify one or some of these aspects in relation to a defined territory, to diagnose possible scarcity and guide public investment decisions. In this context, the current work proposes a methodology to calculate a cross Canadian Index to measure transport poverty at national scale. The index is generated at the Dissemination Areas (DA) level and combines a social disadvantage component (household characteristics as overcrowding and ownership; income-material status, age and labour-force proportions, and, vulnerable population/visible minorities) with a transport disadvantage component (local and regional accessibility to opportunities and current commuting conditions) using nationally available data. Preliminary results show how social and transport disadvantages interact towards transport poverty and TRSE, as well as the need to have different schemes to interpret the index, depending on the levels of compactness/dispersion of urban fabrics and urbanity/rurality of the territories. Future research will tackle the refinement of the index itself, the development of a prioritization framework for transport investment decisions based on the index, and longitudinal analyses of the impact of major transport investments, among others.
Developing a national transport poverty index for Canada
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Paper Abstract