david pritchard. bibliography.

Notes on Banister, Equity and Acceptability Questions in Internalising the Social Costs of Transport [1]

Table 1: Principles of equity, fairness and justice, and potential transport applications at the local level. Source: [2]. Expectations, formal equality and substantive equality are most important for transport.

Principle	Definition	Transport Application
Procedural fairness	Consistency, evenhandedness, non-arbitrariness in procedures	Exclusion of certain interested groups or individuals from the policy process
Expectations	Maintenance of conditions upon which reasonable expectations have been formed	Sudden or major increase in rail fares, unexpected siting of a new road
Formal equity	Equal treatment within a reference group; like benefits enjoyed by like persons	All ratepayers to have access to facilities supported through local taxation
Substantive equality	Equality in final outcomes	Provision to secure equal access to facilities or equal use
Need as demand	A want backed by a willingness to pay	Provision of unsubsidised transport services
Basic need	Minimum requirements to fulfil certain universal objectives	Provision of subsidised transport services to rural areas
Wider need	Wants	Free public transport
Liberty rights	Rights of choice and the corrective duties of forbearance	Rights to intervene in the policy process
Claim rights	Duty to provide something to the rights-holder	Right to concessionary fares
Desert	Distribution according to individual desert, merit or contribution to the common good	Uncertain, possibly provision of concessionary fares for the aged

An interesting essay, but too narrow in scope and a little too rooted in older biases.

• Considers equality impacts of increased fuel taxes, and concludes they would be progressive overall, but regressive within the car owning club. Also considers the impact of transferring vehicle ownership taxes to fuel taxes in a revenue neutral manner, concluding that it would be progressive except for rural users, who have a more strict need to drive.
• Considers impact of road pricing, and concludes that it would be very expensive (especially for low-income groups, inflationary, and policitically unacceptable. There seems to be some underlying assumption that mode changes are bad, and I'm not sure why. They state that "road-pricing would force low-income drivers to reassess both the ownership of the car and the use of that vehicle in urban areas."
• No clear conclusions on rural/urban equality, especially given the shoddy model he used.

Bibliography

1

David Banister.
Equity and acceptability questions in internalising the social costs of transport.
In Internalising the Social Costs of Transportation, pages 153-171. OECD European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 1994.

2

A. Hay and E. Trinder.
Concepts of equity, fairness and justice expressed by local transport policy makers.
Environment and Planning C, 9(4):453-465, 1991.