Factors such as age, disability, and to a different extent travelling with young children or with heavy luggage, are a barrier to people’s mobility and, in turn, their ability to access jobs, services, and other activities. Therefore a key objective of transport policy, planning and regulation should be to guarantee and enhance the accessibility of transport systems to all passengers, including those who are mobility-impaired and encumbered. However, the lack of a common framework to value the economic benefits of accessibility still constitutes a barrier to investment and regulatory decisions in this field. Therefore it is necessary to improve understanding of how accessibility benefits should be defined, quantified and incorporated in a consistent valuation framework. In March 2016, the International Transport Forum convened a roundtable discussion at the OECD headquarters in Paris. Participants from national and local administrations, research and academia, specialist consultants, as well as longstanding advocates of accessibility for all, brought their expertise and ideas to the roundtable. What we found: The economic benefits of improved accessibility are often overlooked and almost always not explicitly valued in traditional transport appraisal and evaluation practices. While costs are often known, benefits are not clearly defined, quantified and documented. The lack of an economic appraisal framework makes prioritisation of accessibility improvements difficult and ad-hoc, and the cost of inaction often goes unaccounted. Decision-makers might also struggle to recognise that investment in accessible transport is beneficial to a large section of the population, and not just to those that are mobility-impaired at the time when investment decisions are made. The rare examples of economic valuations undertaken to date demonstrate that the magnitude of potential benefits from improved accessibility is often large enough to offset the costs. This is the case across a variety of techniques used, ranging from conventional welfare benefits to the inclusion of cross-sector impacts (e.g. reduced health and social care costs) and broader economic impacts (e.g. increased participation to economic activities). Nonetheless, both practical and methodological difficulties need to be addressed before a consistent framework for the appraisal of accessibility benefits can be developed and accepted widely. These include: understanding who benefits from accessibility improvements, and in which ways; the extent to which conventional appraisal methodologies are fit for purpose in this area, and; how emerging research from sectors other than transport can be integrated to ensure that cross-sector impacts are recognised. What we recommend: Ex-post case studies of accessibility improvements can provide evidence on impacts: The current evidence base on the valuation of accessibility benefits needs to be widened by carrying out more analyses of impacts in places where accessibility has been improved. In order to do so, some key elements are: data availability (to a minimum on actual and unmet travel demand, and journey times, before and after the implementation of the accessibility measure); the ability to identify the discrete effects of accessible transport as opposed to other interventions which may be confounding factors, and; a clear identification of beneficiaries. A large, ex-ante assessment of proposed measures to improve accessibility can shed light on the practical application of different methodologies: In a similar fashion to the work carried out on the benefits of “Tourism for all” by the European Commission in 2012, an international team of experts could be gathered with the goal of exploring different benefit estimation techniques and providing reference values for future work. Furthermore, this work could feed into the compilation of a ‘manual case study’ for benefits estimation. The accessibility intervention assessed could relate either to regulatory or investment measures. The techniques employed should reflect the diversity of approaches available, starting with a narrower focus (standard Cost Benefit Analysis [CBA]/ Economic Impact Assessment [EIA]) and progressively widening this scope to include disaggregated impacts, wider impacts and new methodological approaches Accessibility research should be explicitly integrated with health and wellbeing research: Accessible transport contributes to broader objectives to do with health and wellbeing, however these benefits sit largely outside of those traditionally accounted for in transport project appraisal. The cross-sector links are broad, ranging from emerging evidence that links health benefits to active transport modes, and the importance of having access to healthcare and social support facilities. Examples of potential integration include the assessment of Quality Adjusted Life-Year (QALY) impacts from improved accessibility to public transport. Greater collaborative research efforts across sectors can strengthen the case for investment in accessibility. Policy implications: Progress in this field relies on policy makers and regulators appropriately supporting research efforts to consolidate knowledge and provide case studies for different accessibility measures. This will involve not just providing the research funding needed, but also being open to incorporating findings in national appraisal frameworks and to recognising the cross-sector nature of these types of transport interventions. The inclusion of accessibility considerations in a consistent appraisal framework will support efforts by policy-makers as well as transport providers in enhancing accessibility for all. (Author/publisher)
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