Search

This research was aimed at exploring levels of equity in accessibility to employment and education in the city-region of Bogotá, Colombia's capital city. Building on consolidated methodologies for the assessment of potential accessibility, we estimate accessibility indicators at the zone level, evaluate how potential accessibility varies among income groups, and present evidence related to transport mode, in order to analyze social and spatial inequalities produced by the distribution of accessibility to employment and education activities. The research incorporates a method to evaluate how accessibility varies among zones according to average income and mode of transport in order to produce evidence-based arguments that can inform transport policy in the city-region of Bogotá, and other similar contexts in the Global South. Our results show strong distributional effects of the socio-spatial and economic structure of the city-region, its transport infrastructure and services, and the effect of current transport and land-use policies for citizens of different income groups. The tools and empirical evidence in this research seek to contribute to informed policy development in Latin America and other developing contexts, and feeding current debates on the role of accessibility in addressing social and spatial inequalities stemming from urban mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of still-low-but-rising levels of motorization and economic growth, increasing social and spatial inequalities, and growing concerns about air pollution and climate change, the formulation and implementation of policies, practices and partnerships that can support an accelerated implementation of sustainable mobility policies is an urgent concern for rapidly developing cities. This paper seeks to contribute to reframing some of the knowledge and methodologies produced in and about cities of Sub-Saharan Africa, through a comprehensive assessment of mobility patterns and accessibility needs within a larger debate about mobility transitions and sustainable development. By deploying a mixed-methods approach that builds upon case-study focus groups and city-wide accessibility and mobility analysis in the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, the paper maps travel patterns and their links with structural factors such as urban form, poverty, informality and social identities at the macro, meso and micro levels. The paper also presents evidence from a variety of methods that illustrate the significance of accessibility-centred information and analysis for establishing policy priorities for improving urban mobility and accessibility in the local, African and global contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a clean, accessible and healthy transport alternative, the benefits of cycling have been well-documented and suggest positive health, environmental and affordability outcomes. Despite a favourable rhetoric for cycling, in many cities in Latin America, its uptake has gained more traction among younger and carless populations than frequent users of private motorised vehicles. Recognising this reality, our article poses arguments for cycling beyond its classic benefits via direct comparisons of its performance against that of private cars. Our paper compares cycling and car-based trips, presenting evidence in cycling for policy and decision-making targeting a demand segment that has historically been more resistant to modal shifts to sustainable mobility. We contrast performance of both modes in relation to coverage and accessibility, testing different modal shift scenarios in the context of Bogotá, Colombia's capital city. As a city that has been recognised in the international literature for both its successes in urban transport policy and its persisting mobility and access inequalities, Bogotá's contrasts are an ideal setting for this research. We build on a geo-coded household travel survey for 2015 and API-sourced datasets to develop spatial coverage and potential accessibility metrics for cycling and car-based trips. Findings suggest Bogotá's large potential for further increases in cycling, particularly from car-users, which can lead to overall societal gains in terms of sustainable accessibility and present a fertile ground for bike-sharing systems. The paper builds on spatially and socially distributed findings to identify areas with the highest potential for bike-sharing in Bogotá. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now a long tradition of accessibility research, with an increasingly rich set of frameworks and methods from a distributional perspective. Despite such a positive outlook, many accessibility metrics deployed in research and practice do not consider (dis)utility, which may resonate more clearly with mainstream transport decision-making and planning. This paper seeks to contribute to debates about using utility-based measures as inputs for accessibility assessment of transport infrastructure investments in the Global South using discrete choice modeling and its potential as a bridging language between socially nuanced and economics-driven transport planning practices. This paper uses mixed revealed preferences and stated preferences data collected in Bogotá, Colombia. Then, it uses a logsum accessibility metric to estimate the differentiated impact of a set of infrastructure interventions on the accessibility of residents with different income levels and other socioeconomic conditions. Particularly, the logsum accessibility metric analyses future and structural additions to Bogotá public transport networks, reflecting their effect on the accessibility and consumer surplus in the next 20 years. The proposed approach captures the benefits derived from the transport infrastructure improvements, which has relevance for debates about transport policy and practice in this and similar urban contexts in the Global South. These accessibility gains could be assigned a monetary value to include in project cost-benefit assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Metrocable in Medellín, Colombia, is an innovative system to improve access to deprived areas located in hilly zones. The idea to use cable cars as feeders to the metro was integrated into an ambitious urban project that, to date, has improved accessibility dramatically for some low-income residents. Using data before and after the project’s implementation, we evaluate the impact on social equity for the population in the zone of influence, considering changes in accessibility to employment and in housing-related costs. The access provided by the project to the main high-employment centres has doubled the number of opportunities that can be reached by the “target population,” even though travel-time savings and costs have seen only small changes. In fact, prior access to the CBD was poor and expensive, but time and costs were reduced with the Metrocable, although this reduction was not equal for all locations in the metropolitan area. In general, we argue that the main benefits, in terms of accessibility that differentiates the areas analysed from those used for comparison, are related to a localised ease of access to specific centres of activity according to the centralised development of the city’s job market along the mass transit lines. In terms of housing costs, we developed a set of difference-in-difference models that considered rent, transport, and public utilities costs; however, none of them have allowed us to conclude that there was a statistically valid relationship between the Metrocable and the changes in costs between the two analysed populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]