Measuring transport equity: Key components, framings and metrics

In this chapter, we recommend that the development of equity indicators should account for three components: (i) the benefits and burdens of interest, (ii) the population groups over which they are distributed; and (iii) a clear conception of what a "morally proper distribution" of benefit or burden should be. We present a simple framework of how to move from a general conceptualization of a benefit or burden to a more precise definition of suitable individual variables that can be subjected to an equity analysis. The assessment of equity also hinges on the identification of different population groups, along multiple dimensions that can represent advantage or disadvantage: income, gender, age, ethnicity, ability, and residential location. We end the chapter with an overview of the linchpin of an equity indicator: an explicit normative standard specifying what is desirable and what is not. Taken together, these three components are the ingredients of the equity indicators presented in the remaining chapters of this book.