Transport poverty risk – A composite spatial index to support policy design and investment targeting as part of a just climate transition

Abstract

This paper focuses upon private road transport travel and adopts the concept of Transport Poverty Risk (TPR) as a catch-all for the impacts that may result from changes in transport costs, access to transport services, and related transport policy interventions and investments. The motivation for understanding TPR at a fine spatial scale, and objectively analysing how TPR is influenced by potential policy changes, is to offer policy makers valuable decision support for prioritising investments, targeting supports, monitoring relative progress and ultimately supporting policy design that can mitigate emissions whilst also managing TPR as part of a just transition. Taking Ireland as a case study country, a granular spatial index of TPR (TPRI), based on three core pillars of transport affordability, mobility, and accessibility, is constructed. Three illustrative scenarios, all relevant to climate action, are assessed and presented to showcase the TPRI capacity. The results highlight clear disparities in transport poverty risk across our case country, but similarly they show that high and low risk areas are not uniquely attributable to either urban or rural areas. This is important as local authorities should be supported in targeting and prioritising their actions over time, as well as monitoring how developments in fuel prices (e.g. current volatility) and policy (e.g. public transport investments) may impact specific areas in terms of TPR.

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