The International Transport Forum (ITF) in association with the OECD, has just published the findings of a roundtable discussion on the economic impacts of improved accessibility to transport services and networks. Tony Duckenfield, Head of Insights at Steer Davies Gleave, played an integral part in the event, where relevant knowledge and experience from around the world was shared and examined in detail.
From the discussion and review of evidence it became apparent that:
1. There is an increasing understanding of the wide ranging impacts of better accessibility, including both wider economic and societal benefits.
2. There has been an increase in the codification of accessibility as a right in national and international laws.
3. The lack of a common framework to value the importance of accessibility can act as a break on investment and regulatory decisions that promote better accessibility.
4. Progress can be achieved both by applying conventional transport analysis techniques to the estimation of accessibility benefits, and by strengthening cross-sector research efforts that capture the wide-ranging impacts of better accessibility.
The discussion paper with summary and conclusions is now available on the ITF website.
If you’d like to find out more about our work on accessibility, please contact us at [email protected].