Improving Accessibility: Evaluating National Policy
Improving accessibility is one of the main goals of the new Dutch white paper on planning and transport. Not just for the sake of better accessibility, but in order to improve the country’s economic performance and reduce the frustration of travellers and shippers. This is nothing new. Improving accessibility has been a policy aim for years. However, results are clearly not yet satisfactory enough. Accessibility is a means to an end, not the actual end itself. Although that notion sometimes gets lost in politics, policy and public debate. The tone there is set by newspaper headlines on dreadful days with massive congestion and ill functioning public transport leaving people stranded or stories from mobility and logistics advocates predicting ‘complete gridlock’ is unavoidable if we do not build more roads soon. However, the actual means are quite easy to derive. The gridlock causes economic damage, ill functioning public transport and massive congestion too, and frustrate people in the process of executing their activities. And in addition, poor accessibility deprives people from opportunities to develop and participate in society. So accessibility has to provide many things: prosperity, opportunity and ease of travel. And all of that in a complex interplay between human behaviour, economic logic, infrastructure and transport provision and spatial planning. To the general public good accessibility means easy travel to specific destinations, such as the trip to work or visiting grandmother. For a transport company, it means good connectivity and smooth traffic flow on specific routes. Companies or households looking to relocate may be more interested in the total number of destinations or work force within reach from their future location. And shops and amenities want to be in a location that many people can easily get to. Policy views accessibility in a way that is closely related to things they can actually influence and that fit best the views of the general public. As a result, accessibility policy at the national level is in the Netherlands almost equal to infrastructure policy, focussing on improving traffic flow on the main roads, increasing travel speeds, making transport networks more robust and increasing connectivity for the most important economic nodes. Distance that is travelled is largely left out of the equation, yet is of crucial importance to provide accessibility in a broad sense: access to economic or social opportunities. This paper analyses how accessibility is interpreted and operationalised in (national) policy. The author will show that it matters which definition is used. The author evaluates current policy instruments on their contribution to improving accessibility and discusses the dilemma’s and trade offs that are inevitably related to policy choices regarding accessibility improvement. The paper concludes with a number of reflections that can help improve policy.
- Record URL:
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Supplemental Notes:
- Abstract used by permission of Association for European Transport.
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Corporate Authors:
Association for European Transport (AET)
1 Vernon Mews, Vernon Street, West Kensington
London W14 0RL, -
Authors:
- Snellen, Daniëlle
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Conference:
- European Transport Conference 2012
- Location: Glasgow , Scotland
- Date: 2012-10-8 to 2012-10-10
- Publication Date: 2012
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Bibliography; Figures; Maps;
- Pagination: 15p
- Monograph Title: European Transport Conference 2012
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Accessibility; Economic development; Freight traffic; Infrastructure; Logistics; Mobility; Traffic congestion
- Geographic Terms: Netherlands
- Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01542215
- Record Type: Publication
- Files: TRIS
- Created Date: Oct 29 2014 11:26AM