How much do we value improvements on the accessibility to public transport for people with reduced mobility or disability?

Abstract

The public transport system of Santiago de Chile presents several deficiencies in terms of accessibility, especially for people with reduced mobility. However, there is no official guideline or prioritization on how to value these improvements on accessibility, making them a costly expense. This paper values accessibility elements in the urban bus system of public transport in Santiago, Chile, through a stated preference experiment. The attributes included in this experiment are: audio-visual information at bus stops, elevation of stops, buses' access ramps, and time of travel. Based on the data collected from the survey, discrete choice models were estimated to obtain the preferences and valuations of individuals for the elements, with a focus on people with reduced mobility. The results show that individuals with reduced mobility value at least twice the accessibility elements than people without reduced mobility.

Introduction

Transport systems are used daily by people all over the world to reach different places in order to work, study or go shopping, enabling them to move around the city and be part of a community. This should be a right for every citizen, regardless of their physical and/or socioeconomic condition. Nevertheless, this is not true in developing countries where people with reduced mobility experience several difficulties while commuting.

Moreover, people with disabilities are frequently identified as one group that suffers major social exclusion because of their reduced mobility (Aarhaug & Elvebakk, 2015; Alsnih & Hensher, 2003; Barnes & Mercer, 2005) and the problems they face with public transport is one of the most relevant causes of that exclusion (Aarhaug & Elvebakk, 2015; Kenyon, Lyons, & Rafferty, 2002; Stanley et al., 2011). A transport system that does not allow them to travel comfortably and quickly is a system that reduces their participation in society. This attempts against their inclusion and do not allow them to develop correctly and to be included in society (Tyler, 2015).

Based on the above, improving the accessibility of public transport for users with reduced mobility (RM) becomes an important goal, especially in a developing country's context where social exclusion is an issue. Thus, a city's transport system should aim at a Universal Design that can provide accessibility and independence to the greatest number of people possible. However, in Chile, transportation projects that include elements of Universal Design currently do not have a formal valuation methodology to incorporate this type of social benefits, so they are usually disregarded as less socially profitable.

Therefore, the main objective of this research is to obtain the valuation of people for improving the accessibility of their urban bus system in a developing country context (Chile), by incorporating different elements of Universal Design through a stated preference experiment. As far as the authors know, there are no similar investigations in developing countries nor in Chile. The experiment considered three accessibility elements: audio-visual information at bus stops, elevation of stops and buses' access ramps.

While is true that Transantiago, the public transport system of Santiago (Chile), has made some progress in carrying people with reduced mobility (RM) over the past decade, much remains to be improved. A study from 2012 showed that in Transantiago about 80% of the bus stops and 23% of the bus fleet did not have elements of accessibility (DTPM, 2012), such as access ramps, guiding floor or handrails.

These deficiencies require even more attention if we consider that nowadays disability is not defined as the impediments that an individual faces as result of a disease, but rather corresponds to a complex interaction between individual capacities and environmental factors (Lid & Solvang, 2016). In addition, there is a notorious aging trend among the Chilean population: according to projections by the Chilean National Institute of Statistics, by the year 2020, about 11.9% of the Chilean population will be senior citizens (over 65 years), while by 2050 this proportion is expected to increase to 21.6%. This implies an increase in elderly passengers, who usually present illnesses that hinder their mobility (Karekla, Fujiyama, & Tyler, 2011).

Although other authors have valued elements of universal design in the transport system (Wardman, Hine, & Stradling, 2001; Maynard, 2007; Odeck, Hagen, & Fearnley, 2010; and; Karekla et al., 2011), these valuations have been undertaken in developed countries. As shown in Table 1, the elements of Universal Design more frequently valued are: information at bus stops, improved boarding, shelter facilities at bus stops, seats at bus stops, and light at bus stops. On the other hand, Fearnley, Flügel, and Ramjerdi (2011) comprehensively document passengers' valuations of Universal Design measures in public transport.

Based on the Norwegian experience, Odeck et al. (2010) propose a cost-benefit analysis of universal design measures based on the increase of patronage due to the specific measure and cost of the measure. Also, they identified the different types of benefits and costs related to each measure, proposing to value the benefits thorough a complete valuation study tailored for Norway.

This paper is structured as follows: Section 2 explains briefly the modelling framework, while Section 3 describes the methodology, deepening the survey's elaboration and its characteristics. Section 4 shows the main results, focusing in the differences between people with or without RM and with a concise analysis of the results. Finally, Section 5 presents the conclusions and future research lines.