Assessing social impacts of urban transport policies: from spatial to social accessibility
This paper examines the influence of daily mobility conditions on social and spatial accessibility. Using data on gravity-based accessibility measures, it presents two types of transport policies and their impact on accessibility to jobs. It first examines the effects of the adoption of urban charging systems on accessibility, then considers different types of intra-municipal urban toll charging schemes that use cordon or perimeter based charges. If accessibility can be considered a modelling tool to limit traffic flows, it can also be seen as a tool to reduce urban social inequalities. To illustrate this concept, the second part of the paper highlights the positive impacts of a new cross-suburban tramline constructed to fight both social and spatial inequalities.