Identifying Winners and Losers in Transportation

Abstract

This paper explores the issues surrounding transportation equity for effects both external and internal to transportation. Several examples of transportation "improvements" imposing transportation costs on more individuals than who are benefited are provided. Beyond counting the number of winners and losers, several quantitative measures of equity are suggested. To that end, transportation benefit cost analyses should include an "Equity Impact Statement". This statement would consider the distribution of the opportunities to participate in decisions and the outcomes of those decisions (in terms of mobility, economic, environmental, and health effects) that different strata (spatial, temporal, modal, generational, gender, racial, cultural, and income) of the population receive. Policy makers would then have additional information on which to base decisions.