Public Transportation and Social Sustainability: Investigating the Use of Indicators to Evaluate Social Sustainability in Public Transportation Systems
Loading...
Date
2022
Authors
Irsfeld, Brendan J.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Planning, Public Policy & Management, University of Oregon
Abstract
For the last 30 years, countries across the world have grappled with how to advance people’s quality of
life given increasing risks to daily life posed by a changing climate. Among our understanding of the
drivers of climate change, the transportation sector in particular exists as a primary source of
greenhouse gas emissions and must be reformed to achieve a sustainable society. In recent years, a
renewed interest in promoting sustainable transportation has driven sizeable government expenditures,
notably as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in the United States. Recognizing the
urgency with which large sums of public funds are allocated toward transforming the U.S. transportation
system, it is important to possess a means of evaluating if such investments produce the desired
outcomes. This project examines one component of sustainability evaluation in the context of public
transportation systems. Public transportation is an essential service for millions of individuals on a daily
basis to access employment, education, healthcare, basic amenities, and social interactions. However, in
striving to make transportation systems sustainable, policymakers and researchers alike often focus
their attention on the environmental and economic aspects of sustainability. The social aspect of
sustainability and how to evaluate it is much less researched.
I examine the literature published about social sustainability and the proposed approaches to assessing
it in public transportation systems. Using a mixed-methods approach, I employ a science mapping
analysis to build a visualization of different indicators meant to measure characteristics of social
sustainability within public transportation. From this map, I perform a content analysis to distinguish
indicators that are clear in their prescribed measurement and analyze the structure of how indicators
relate to themes. This analysis assesses how useful current evaluation methods for identifying social
sustainability in systems are for today’s transit providers and researchers.
Based on the analysis, I find that social sustainability is especially complex, compromised of over a dozen
themes that each possess a number of associated indicators. Although some indicators prescribe a clear
measurement, many others lack specificity in what the indicator measures or how to carry out that
measurement and can vary in meaning based on the geographic scale selected for assessment.
Furthermore, existing models evaluating social sustainability in transportation often fail to assess
aspects of the transportation system that most affect vulnerable populations, including people living
with disabilities. From these findings, I argue that a comprehensive review of existing indicators to
provide clear measurements and develop new indicators to account for gaps in assessment of social
sustainability is needed to give policymakers and researchers a functional tool for ensuring that
sustainability plans address each of the major pillars: environmental, economic, and social. Ensuring
balance between these priorities will ensure large investments to reform public transportation systems
do not achieve sustainability through environmental and economic objectives at the expense of social outcomes.
Description
59 pages
Keywords
transit, public transportation, social sustainability