Equity and Accessibility in Urban Mobility

Abstract

This chapter provides a systematic framework for assessing equity in urban accessibility, highlighting its growing importance to policymakers and researchers. It first clarifies the concept of accessibility—how land use, transport, temporal factors, and individual characteristics collectively shape people's ability to reach desired destinations—and links this to fairness. The chapter then explores dominant ethical principles underpinning equity evaluations, focusing on egalitarianism (minimizing accessibility differences between groups) and sufficientarianism (ensuring everyone meets a basic threshold level). Next, it examines commonly used quantitative indicators—such as the Gini index and the coefficient of variation—to measure and compare equity levels in accessibility outcomes. It also underscores the significance of spatial aggregation, showing that the chosen scale (e.g., individual addresses, neighborhoods, municipalities) can greatly influence perceived inequalities. These findings stress the need for careful methodological decisions when analyzing distributions of accessibility across diverse populations and areas. Finally, the chapter concludes that the literature and methods for evaluating equity of accessibility remain evolving. Future research could incorporate different ethical frameworks, more detailed considerations of individual preferences and perceptions, additional destination types, and the role of digital access. Collectively, this guidance supports well-informed, context-sensitive policy decisions to foster more equitable urban mobility.