Perceived Accessibility of Public Transport as a Potential Indicator of Social Inclusion

Abstract

Perceived accessibility has been acknowledged as an important aspect of transport policy since the 70s. Nevertheless, very few empirical studies have been conducted in this field. When aiming to improve social inclusion, by making sustainable transport modes accessible to all, it is important to understand the factors driving perceived accessibility. Unlike conventional accessibility measures, perceived accessibility focuses on the perceived possibilities and ease of engaging in preferred activities using different transport modes. We define perceived accessibility in terms of how easy it is to live a satisfactory life with the help of the transport system, which is not necessarily the same thing as the objective standard of the system. According to previous research, perceived accessibility varies with the subjectively-rated quality of the mode of transport. Thus, improvements in quality (e.g. trip planning, comfort, or safety) increase the perceived accessibility and make life easier to live using the chosen mode of transport. This study (n=750) focuses on the perceived accessibility of public transport, captured using the Perceived Accessibility Scale PAC (Lättman, Olsson, & Friman, 2015). More specifically, this study aims to determine how level of quality affects the perceived accessibility in public transport. A Conditional Process Model shows that, in addition to quality, feeling safe and frequency of travel are important predictors of perceived accessibility. Furthermore, elderly and those in their thirties report a lower level of perceived accessibility to their day-to-day activities using public transport. The basic premise of this study is that subjective experiences may be as important as objective indicators when planning and designing for socially inclusive transport systems.

Public Transport Accessibility: A Literature Review

“…The aim of perceived quality is to apprehend the subjective measures which are based on the user perception, incorporating with subjective measures which refer to the quantitative measures of predetermined parameters (Lättman et al, 2016). In 2016, Lättman et al proposed to consider the perceived accessibility in public transport as a complementary measure to conventional objective measures of accessibility by capturing the subjective element of accessibility, as opposed to conventional accessibility that is based on the same objective attributes for large areas or groups of people.…”

Development and test of the Perceived Accessibility Scale (PAC) in public transport

“…Conventional accessibility measures deal with this by measuring cost or time. We argue that the perception of ease may be dependent on other determinants, such as perceived quality, feelings of safety, or travel frequency (Lättman et al, 2016), and therefore aim at capturing a broader view of ease when measuring overall perceived accessibility, not specifying possible determinants at this stage, but rather leaving the elements of the experience of the ease of reaching to the individuals themselves.…”

“…Even so, it is of importance to look at determinants of perceived accessibility, and if they differ between groups of travelers, or between travel modes. We know today that transport quality, feelings of safety, travel frequency, and age predict PAC (Lättman et al, 2016), but there are many other possible determinants out there to be examined in future studies.…”

Transport Policy and Social Inclusion

“…While the majority have a European focus, with four papers addressing transport and social inclusion in UK (Clark & Curl, 2016;Marshall et al, 2016;Pooley, 2016;Velho, Holloway, Symonds, & Balmer, 2016), one in Sweden (Lättman, Friman, & Olsson, 2016) and one in France (Purwanto, 2016), three explore different elements of the African (Alando & Scheiner, 2016;Kett & Deluca, 2016) and Asian (Thynell, 2016) contexts. From a methodological perspective, the papers present a variety of approaches (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods and a computer software simulation) drawn from a wide range of disciplinary areas, including sociology, history, gender and development studies, economics, science and technology studies, accessibility planning, engineering and transport studies.…”

“…Still on the bus, Lättman et al (2016) contribute to the debate around transport and social inclusion by exploring the concept of perceived accessibility using a quantitative survey of 705 Swedish bus passengers. In their study, perceived accessibility refers to the extent to which participants find it easy to lead a satisfactory and socially inclusive life by using the bus as a means of transport.…”