Distributional Impacts of Transport by Ahsan Khan

Ahsan Khan SN: 13097496 18/04/2023

Assignment: Engineering, Society and Planet 103PTitle: Distributional impacts of transport

Transportation is an essential part of our everyday lives. Whether it is students taking the bus to school, or commuters driving to work or people taking the train to visit family, transportation is important to people from all walks of life. This essay will discuss the distributional impacts of transport, and try to describe how transport can have negative impacts on people’s lives, and some of the social, economic and environmental factors that contribute to this. The role of engineers in mitigating the negative impacts shall also be discussed.

Experts state that transport has distributional impacts; ‘benefits and costs are often distributed unevenly across different sectors of the economy. Particularly disadvantaged groups are impacted by negative impacts,’ (Christie, 2015). Christie further states that some of the impacts which affect poor people more than the rich include, a lack of safety and personal security, pollution (higher exposure rates to ozone, particulates and nitrogen oxide), poor quality urban environments and road death and injury. Other transport experts offer a slightly different list of adverse environmental and health impacts caused by transport activities, ‘of which local and regional air pollution, climate change, and noise impacts are the most important,’ (Van Dender & Crist, 2009).

It is important to understand the distributional impacts of transport as ‘transport decisions often have significant equity impacts. Equity refers to the fairness with which impacts (benefits and costs) are distributed,’ (Christie, 2015). The below image (from Christie, 2015) makes an important point; ‘Equity is about fairness, it’s about making sure people get access to the same opportunities’. Christie suggests a solution for reducing inequality and inequity; ‘transport policies should be used to help economically and socially disadvantaged groups’. It can be argued that London’s administration has been doing a fairly good job of implementing a ‘progressive’ policy by investing in transport and regeneration projects in deprived areas such as Stratford, King’s Cross and Brixton (just a few recent examples).

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Ahsan Khan SN: 13097496 18/04/2023

Let us consider what engineers can do to mitigate the negative impacts of transport on people’s lives. Christie suggests that ‘transport should be affordable and disadvantaged groups should not bear excessive external impacts (pollution, collisions, financial costs, etc.)’. Thus the role of engineers is critical as they have a responsibility to design safe, cost effective and sustainable transport solutions which cause minimum pollution. Engineers can help reduce collisions on roads for example by reducing speeds in urban areas. ‘The risk of death is approximately four times higher when a pedestrian is hit at 40mph than at 30mph,’(Christie, 2015; Richards, 2010). ‘Environmental modification and speed management’ (through use of 20 mph zones), and ‘area wide engineering to reduce speed and volume of traffic’ are other intervention approaches recommended by Christie, as well as ‘behavioural changes through regulation, education, enforcement’. In conclusion, the distributional impacts of transport have been discussed, and the negative impacts of transport on people’s lives have been highlighted, which include, a lack of safety and security, climate change, noise and air pollution and death and injuries caused by collisions. The role of engineers has also been discussed and some solutions to help mitigate negative impacts have also been stated including, good design to ensure safety, affordability, minimise pollution and for roads safety solutions mentioned range from the importance of limiting speeds to environmental modification and behavioural change.

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Ahsan Khan SN: 13097496 18/04/2023

Bibliography1. Christie, D. N. (2015, February 16). Distributional impacts of transport. London, England: Centre for Transport Studies, UCL.

2. Van Dender, K., & Crist, P. (2009, May). Policy instruments to limit negative environmental impacts from increased international transport – An economic perspective. (Joint Transport Research Centre of the OECD and the International Transport Forum) Retrieved March 1, 2015, from OECD Library: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/5ksgq0dn0mnt.pdf?expires=1425219727&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=3809F1D8F4456510603F0258FE05777A

Word count (excluding bibliography), but including references and quotations within the essay = 550 words. (500 + 10%)

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