TRIP-100091; No of Pages 14

Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives

journal homepage: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/transportation-research-
interdisciplinary-perspectives

A systematic overview of transportation equity in terms of accessibility,

traffic emissions, and safety outcomes: From conventional to
emerging technologies
Yujie Guo a, Zhiwei Chen a, Amy Stuart a,b, Xiaopeng Li a, Yu Zhang a,
⁎
a
Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of South Florida, United States of America
b
College of Public Health, University of South Florida, United States of America

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: Emerging transportation technologies (e.g., electric vehicles) and services (e.g., shared mobility) provide efficient, sus-
Received 15 September 2019 tainable and cost-effective alternatives to traditional travel modes. However, whether these innovative technologies
Received in revised form 25 December 2019 bring benefits to different population groups in an equal and reasonable manner is still an open question. The various
Accepted 20 January 2020
methods applied to evaluate the equity performance of these systems are also not clearly comparable. In this paper, we
Available online xxxx
comprehensively review methods from the existing literature for assessing the equity of a few important system out-
Keywords:
comes: accessibility, traffic emissions, and safety. We also identify the existing challenges of analyzing equity for
Equity assessment framework emerging transportation technologies. We unify the existing methodologies into a three-step framework that includes
Emerging transportation technologies population measurement, cost/benefit measurement and equity assessment, and we summarize the applicable mea-
Accessibility surements for each step, in detail. A handful of literature focusing on emerging transportation technologies, such as
Traffic emissions shared mobility and autonomous vehicles, were also identified and surveyed; the methodologies used were found to
Environment fit with the three-step framework. We summarize the major findings and discuss promising directions for developing
Safety more sophisticated equity assessment methodologies for emerging transportation technologies. Overall, based on a
comprehensive review, this paper contributes a framework for assessing the equity of transportation systems that in-
tegrates accessibility, traffic emissions, and safety outcomes. The summarized framework can be an overview resource
to assist researchers and transportation planners who require equity analysis methods. The research gaps identified
also provide directions for equity research on emerging transportation technologies.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
2. Selection of relevant literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
3. Framework for transportation equity analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
4. Population measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
4.1. Population measurement for horizontal equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
4.2. Population measurement for vertical equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
4.3. Spatial scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5. Cost/benefit measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5.1. Accessibility-related cost/benefit measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5.2. Cost/benefit measures related to traffic emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5.2.1. Measurement of traffic-related air pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5.2.2. Measurement of exposure to traffic pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5.3. Cost/benefit measures related to traffic safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
6. Equity assessment approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
6.1. Mismatch analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
6.2. Statistical approaches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yuzhang@usf.edu. (Y. Zhang).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2020.100091
2590-1982/© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access
article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
Y. Guo et al. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx

6.3. Inequality indicator-based approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

7. Equity results and policy implications for traditional transportation system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
7.1. Transportation equity issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
7.2. Policy implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
8. Applications of the framework to emerging transportation technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
8.1. Equity assessment framework for emerging transportation technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
8.1.1. Accessibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
8.1.2. Traffic emissions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
8.1.3. Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
8.2. Equity outcomes and policy implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
8.3. Research gaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
9. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

1. Introduction
In recent years, various innovative transportation technologies
(e.g., autonomous, electric, and connected vehicles) and services
(e.g., bike-sharing, car-sharing) have emerged as alternatives to tradi-
tional travel modes and are becoming increasingly popular all over the
world. These innovative services have been shown to bring substantial
economic, environmental, and health benefits to society, including im-
proved transportation services (Li et al., 2016), reduced emissions of
pollutants (Pal and Zhang, 2017; Yu and Stuart, 2017), and induced
physical activities (Woodcock et al., 2014). For example, 1 car-sharing
vehicle removed 9–13 private vehicles in North America in 2008
(Martin et al., 2010). Also, people receive benefits from bike sharing
programs with increased physical activity, improved accessibility, and
reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Buck, 2013). However,
these benefits may not be distributed among population groups in a
fair or reasonable manner, leading to what are known as equity issues
in urban transportation planning.
Conceptually, ‘equity’ refers to the fairness of the distribution of impacts
among populations (Litman, 2002) and is a multi-disciplinary term widely
used in various fields such as politics, economics, and environmental sci-
ence; thus, its specific definition varies among different contexts. We
focus here specifically on a definition that concerns the distribution of out-
comes, and not the broader concept also concerned with participation of
marginalized groups in policy processes (Department of Trannsportation
of United States, 1970; Federal Highway Administration of the United
States [FHWA], 2012; FHWA and Federal Transit Administration [FTA],
1999; FTA, 2012a; FTA, 2012b). ‘Equality’, a similar term that is also fre-
quently used in the literature, instead describes a homogeneous distribu-
tion of impacts among population groups (García-Valiñas et al., 2005).
Inequality can be reduced by regulation and management, e.g., by requir-
ing technologies that reduce air pollution where it is higher than in other
regions. Inequity, however, is largely the subset of inequality that is deemed
unfair or unjust by social norms (Macinko and Starfield, 2002). For exam-
ple, health inequalities that stem from genetic differences are usually not
categorized as inequitable; while disparities in health resulting from expo-
sure to unhealthy levels of traffic emissions are considered inequitable
(Levy et al., 2006).
In transportation, equity issues first emerged with the Civil Rights Act of
1964, which requires federal agencies to distribute federal resources in the
fairest and least discriminatory manner (Welch and Mishra, 2013). Nowa-
days, equity is considered in most transportation planning documents
(Karner et al., 2016). Generally speaking, equity can be considered from
the horizontal and vertical perspectives (Bhuyan et al., 2019). Horizontal
equity requires each similar individual or group to have the same distribu-
tion of costs or benefits (Litman, 2002). A transportation program is hori-
zontally equitable if related resources are distributed evenly among the
population (Bhuyan et al., 2019). Vertical equity, also known as ‘social eq-
uity’, aims to provide services to those who need them most. Transportation
policies are vertically equitable if they favor disadvantaged groups (Di
Ciommo and Shiftan, 2017).
Based on these definitions, extensive studies have been conducted to
assess the distribution of benefits for various traditional transportation sys-
tems, ranging from unimodal systems (e.g., automobile, bus) to multimodal
systems (e.g., transit network consisting of buses, trains, trams) with a focus
on accessibility, environmental impact, and safety. Despite these studies, to
date there is no established standard to assess the equity performance of tra-
ditional transportation systems, including those involving emerging trans-
portation technologies and services. Further, a better understanding of
past attempts in traditional transportation systems can lay a solid founda-
tion for proposing an appropriate equity assessment methodology for
emerging transportation systems.
To address these gaps, this paper reviews the state-of-art in assessment
of the equity of three important outcomes of traditional transportation sys-
tems and identifies the existing challenges in applying existing methods to
emerging transportation technologies. A synthesis of the transportation re-
search literature on the equity of accessibility, traffic emissions, and safety
is presented. We also unify the existing methods into a framework for eq-
uity assessment consisting of three steps, namely population measurement,
cost/benefit measurement, and inequity measurement. This review is dif-
ferent from others in the following ways:
• First, it offers an integrated perspective that considers the multiple out-
comes of accessibility, traffic emissions, and safety. Existing works have
usually studied equity performance for one type of outcome, but very
few have offered an integrated view.
• Second, it unifies existing equity assessment methods into a taxonomy
based on a three-step process. This framework summarizes the measure-
ments that can be applied in each step of equity evaluation, allowing
transportation planning agencies to find the measurements they require
more efficiently.
• Third, it discusses the adaption of available methodologies for assessment
of emerging transportation technologies and services and identifies existing
challenges to such adaptation.
Note that this review paper does not cover all aspects of equity in trans-
portation, rather it reviews how previous transportation research has
framed and measured the equity of transportation outcomes, including ac-
cessibility, traffic emissions, and safety. Furthermore, the review is not con-
cerned with equity in the policy process or system financing, neither is it
about philosophy or theory of equity.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents
the search terms and paper selection criteria used to identify and filter pa-
pers for this review. Section 3 synthesizes the approaches used for the anal-
ysis of the equity performance of transportation into a general framework
and procedure. Section 4 reviews population measurement approaches.
Section 5 reviews the measurement of costs/benefits related to accessibil-
ity, traffic emissions, and safety. Section 6 reviews approaches for the mea-
surement of equity of those outcomes. Section 7 summarizes the findings

2
Y. Guo et al.
and policy implications from the current literature related to traditional
transportation systems. Section 8 synthesizes the current literature that
has measured equity for emerging transportation technologies, discusses
the application of an equity analysis framework to emerging transportation
systems, and identifies research gaps. Section 9 provides concluding
thoughts.
2. Selection of relevant literature
To identify the relevant literature for this review, we used both Google
Scholar and the ScienceDirect database. The search fields for Google
Scholar were its default search engine, and for ScienceDirect we only
used ‘Keywords’ search field. All searches looked for works that contained
both a search term related to equity and a search term related to the trans-
portation outcome, emerging technology, or service. For equity, we used
the search terms ‘justice of’ or ‘equity of’. For accessibility, our search
terms were ‘transportation accessibility’ and ‘transportation connectivity’.
For environmental impacts, we used the terms ‘transportation emission
exposure’ and ‘traffic pollution’. For safety, we used ‘traffic accident’ and
‘transportation safety’. For emerging transportation concepts, the search
terms were ‘shared mobility’, ‘bike sharing’, ‘car sharing’, ‘emerging trans-
portation’, ‘electric vehicle’, ‘autonomous vehicles’, and ‘ride hailing’.
Many of the papers identified through this search included brief reviews
of the existing literature, which enabled the identification of additional ar-
ticles. To select relevant papers, we carefully screened each paper found to
identify those that directly address the topics within the scope our review.
The papers we selected include studies that focused on equity assessment or
on cost/benefit measurement. We also selected papers on the equity of pol-
icies and practices for both traditional and emerging transportation sys-
tems. Overall, a total of 61 papers were selected for detailed review.
These include 41 papers that measured the equity performance of tradi-
tional transportation systems, 13 papers that measured the equity perfor-
mance of emerging transportation systems, and 7 papers that did not
measure transportation equity but were nonetheless found to be relevant
to the scope here.
3. Framework for transportation equity analysis
As noted previously, there is no existing standard approach for assessing
the equity performance of transportation systems. After comprehensively
reviewing the literature identified above, we found that the majority of
existing methods for transportation equity analysis can be generalized
into a three-step framework, as shown in Fig. 1.
Population measurement – defines the research scope based on the pop-
ulation groups or individuals for whom the outcomes of transportation
systems are measured and compared; it also quantifies the distribution
of the study domain population among those groups. If horizontal eq-
uity is evaluated, the distribution of the total population to area units,
Fig. 1. Three-step framework of equity assessment.
3
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx
such as census areas, is quantified. If vertical equity is evaluated, the dis-
tribution of the population by subgroups (e.g., based on socioeconomic
status) is further quantified.
Cost/benefit measurement – quantifies the costs or benefits (i.e., out-
comes) of interest (e.g., accessibility) for each population group. For ex-
ample, a public transit accessibility index for each census track has been
used to measure accessibility for the population of each corresponding
area.
Inequality measurement – compares the outcomes among the spatially
distributed population (horizontal equity) or among population sub-
groups (vertical equity). The equity measurement tools include mis-
match analysis (e.g., using GIS mapping), calculation of inequality
metrics (e.g., Gini index), and regression modeling (e.g., multivariate
regression).
This three-step framework synthesizes the core process traditionally
used to assess the equity of transportation system outcomes. Results from
this framework can assist researchers or practitioners to better understand
the equity performance of transportation systems. Based on above defini-
tions and discussions, the sections below provide detailed discussion of
each step in the equity analysis framework.
4. Population measurement
Population measurement defines the subsets of the human population
for which the cost/benefit measure will be determined and compared, basi-
cally answering the question “equity for whom?” Outcomes can be mea-
sured for individuals and for population groups that are defined based on
either spatial location, if horizontal equity is to be evaluated, or based on
other characteristics (such as socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, or
mobility needs), if vertical equity is evaluated. This section will discuss dif-
ferent approaches to population measurement for equity evaluation and
related issues.
4.1. Population measurement for horizontal equity
Horizontal equity evaluates the distribution of outcomes among all indi-
viduals or among spatially distributed population groups. In transportation
studies, measuring outcomes at the individual level is usually impractical
due to the number of people, the complexity of human travel behavior in
a multimodal transportation system, and the lack of individual-level demo-
graphic data due to privacy issues. Although equity analyses based on
individual-level outcome measures is still rare, the emergence of activity-
based travel demand models is beginning to allow such studies (e.g.,
Gurram et al., 2019). Nonetheless, equity has usually been evaluated by
comparing outcomes among population groups defined based on the spatial
location of residence (though some studies have considered the location of
work, school, and other activities). For these analyses, a defined spatial unit
Y. Guo et al.
is used as the level of analysis for which the aggregate person count is deter-
mined. Aggregated population data for spatial unit areas, such as census
tracts, census blocks, or Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZs), are typically ob-
tained from the Census Bureau. Details of different census area units such
as the area size and available population information can be found via
https://www.census.gov. The selection of the census area unit (the level
of analysis) will be discussed in Section 4.3.
4.2. Population measurement for vertical equity
Vertical equity compares distributions of outcomes between population
groups defined by demographic characteristics, such as socioeconomic sta-
tus. Due to the lack of individual-level data, data aggregated to the same
types of spatial units of analysis described above for study of horizontal
equity are also used for vertical equity analysis. This is enabled by the avail-
ability of detailed information on population characteristics for many of
these spatial units. Common population characteristics that are used to de-
fine population subgroups in vertical equity studies include race, ethnicity,
income, and education level.
Race and ethnicity are similar classifications that group people by com-
mon ancestry and physical characteristics. Groups often considered include
black/African American, white, and Hispanic (Tian et al., 2013); more de-
tailed division includes American Indian or Alaskan native, Asian or Pacific
Islander, multiracial, etc. (Stuart and Zeager, 2011). For education level,
adults with less than a high school education (Buzzelli and Jerrett, 2007)
are the most commonly used group in equity analyses. More detailed anal-
ysis have included additional groups defined as adults who have completed
high school, those with some college education, and college graduates
(Harper et al., 2015). Age-based groups that distinguish children and
older adult populations have been used in some studies (Gurram et al.,
2015), as children and the elderly are usually more vulnerable to environ-
mental risks such as air pollution (Buka et al., 2006; Simoni et al., 2015).
To quantify each of the above groups for equity analysis, the percentage
of each group residing within each spatial unit is usually used. Conversely,
due to the continuous nature of income data, it is usually measured based
on the median household income for each spatial area (Buzzelli and
Jerrett, 2007; Kravetz and Noland, 2012; Tian et al., 2013; Sider et al.,
2015); however categorization of average household income into quintiles
has also been used (Morency et al., 2012).
In addition to the above commonly-used population characteristics,
some researchers also consider groups that are explicitly based on disad-
vantaged status, such as unemployment rate (Buzzelli and Jerrett, 2007;
Sider et al., 2015), mobility need and ability (Currie, 2010), deprivation
index (also termed social disadvantage indicator) (Havard et al., 2009;
Sider et al., 2015). The deprivation index is a measure of cumulative disad-
vantage that integrates various socioeconomic factors such as average
household income, percentage of car ownership, unemployment rate, and
ethnicity. Such a combination of socioeconomic factors is claimed to be
more representative of a population's disadvantage (Sider et al., 2015). In
additional to the use of aggregated population data, individual-level
sociodemographic data from travel demand modeling is gaining more at-
tention, but its use for equity analyses has been limited to a few studies
(Gurram et al., 2015; Gurram, 2017; Gurram et al., 2018; Chen et al., 2019).
4.3. Spatial scale
For equity assessment, it is crucial to select a proper scale for the spatial
unit chosen. However, very few studies in the transportation equity field
have explored the suitability of scale. Different scales can lead to inconsis-
tent results in equity evaluation, which has been referred to as the modifi-
able area unit problem (MAUP) (Dark and Bram, 2007). For example,
Tian et al. (2013) used census tract data to analyze the near-road traffic
population throughout the U.S., while Rowangould (2013) used census
block data and found that many of his results did not agree with Tian. He
explained that the difference might stem from different scales used for
data analysis.
4
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx
Smaller scales could potentially bring benefits to the study. Geronimus
and Bound (1998) argued that less bias was introduced for smaller geo-
graphic units. Also, by comparing the census tract and census block scale,
Soobader et al. (2001) found that smaller geographic units better repre-
sented individual socioeconomic status proxies. Conversely, Tian et al.
(2013) argued that the census tract is the appropriate scale for evaluating
relationships between health disparities and socioeconomic status because
population characteristics and socioeconomic status within a census tract
are relatively homogenous by design. At this stage, it remains unclear
which scale is the most appropriate and more research is needed to evaluate
the choice of scales and their impacts on transportation equity evaluation.
5. Cost/benefit measurement
Cost/benefit measurement quantifies the outcomes of the transporta-
tion system for the population groups chosen above. In this paper, we sum-
marize methods for the measurement of costs and benefits relevant to three
important outcomes in transportation equity literature: accessibility, traffic
emissions, and safety.
5.1. Accessibility-related cost/benefit measures
Accessibility is a fundamental outcome for evaluating the equity perfor-
mance of a transportation system. Accessibility, such as people's access to
jobs, health facilities, etc., reflects the extent to which a transportation sys-
tem enables individuals to reach activities or destinations by means of indi-
vidual of combined transport modes (Welch and Mishra, 2013). The
following is a summary of common methods for measuring accessibility-
related cost/benefits that have been used in equity analysis.
The simplest method for assessing accessibility-related costs/benefits
used in equity analysis was used by Currie (2010) to analyze the public
transportation supply in Melbourne. This approach measures the popula-
tion of a zone's accessibility to transportation facilities (e.g., bus stops,
train stations, tram stops, etc.) as the ratio of the service area for a type of
transportation facility to the area of that zone. It accounts for the spatial
coverage of a transportation system with its service level in a simple and
intuitive manner. Thus, it is called a “coverage-based measure” here. Due
to its simplicity, this measure has been applied to investigate horizontal
and vertical equity of public transport systems (Delbosc and Currie, 2011;
Ricciardi et al., 2015). Yet, two significant drawbacks exist in this approach.
First, although service frequency has been incorporated, this measure
cannot capture many details in a transportation system such as vehicle ca-
pacity and running speed. Thus, it cannot accurately reflect the quality of
service of a transportation system. Second, it measures only the
population's accessibility to a transportation system in its own zone rather
than describing the ability to reach activities or destinations within a larger
study area. Thus, it fails to reach the goal of accessibility assessment, i.e.,
determining to what extent a transportation system enables people to
reach activities or destinations.
To address the first drawback, a couple of studies (Mishra et al., 2012
and Welch and Mishra, 2013) proposed a refined measure that captures
more details on the operations of a transportation system. They considered
various factors that represent the service quality of a transit system, such as
frequency, speed, distance, capacity, and required transfers. They also in-
cluded consideration of the multiple bidirectional nature of transit lines
passing through a single station. A metric called “connecting power” was
used to describe the service quality in both inbound and outbound direc-
tions, where the connecting power of a station was defined as the sum of
the connecting power of the inbound and outbound connecting power of
all lines passing through this station. Finally, the connecting power of a
zone was estimated as the average of the connecting power of all stations
in that zone. Note that this measure of accessibility still adopts the concept
of coverage, so it falls into the category of coverage-based measure.
Welch and Mishra's revised approach overcomes the quality-of-service
drawback of coverage-based measures; however, it cannot address the sec-
ond drawback. Besides, coverage-based measures are built on service radii
Y. Guo et al.
of transit stations, so they cannot be used for modes without stations, such
as emerging transportation technologies including free-floating bike-
sharing, free-floating car-sharing, and ride-sourcing. In light of these issues,
some scholars have proposed reachability-based measures that indicate the
ability of a zone's population to reach activities or destinations in all other
zones within the study area given a monetary and (or) time budget. The
basic idea of a reachability-based approach is to count how many zones
the population within a specific zone can reach with the given budget;
the more zones one can reach, the larger the accessibility. Intuitively speak-
ing, the accessibility between two zones decreases as the travel cost in-
creases. Any functions that satisfy this property can be applied. Common
examples in the literature are the cumulative accessibility function (Golub
and Martens, 2014; El-Geneidy et al., 2016) and a negative exponential
function (Guzman et al., 2017). With this, we can formulate the accessibil-
ity of a zone as the sum of its accessibility to any other zone.
5.2. Cost/benefit measures related to traffic emissions
Traffic is a major source of air pollution worldwide. Traffic emissions in-
clude many types of regulated air pollutants, such as carbon monoxide
(CO), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), benzene, and particulate matter (PM), in-
cluding fine particles (PM2.5) and elemental carbon (EC). Exposure to
traffic-related air pollution has adverse effects on human health; it can ex-
acerbate asthma, and may also contribute to the development of childhood
asthma, other respiratory symptoms, impaired lung function, and cardio-
vascular mortality and morbidity (Health Effects Institute. Panel on the
Health Effects of Traffic-Related Air, 2010). Additionally, according to
U.S. EPA (2019), transportation contributed the largest portion (29%) of
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the U.S in 2017. Because GHGs contrib-
ute to climate change, which can disproportionately affect disadvantaged
people, these emissions are also a health equity concern.
However, assessment of impacts of traffic emissions on equity is chal-
lenging because ambient pollution is a complex mixture of many emitted
pollutants. Secondary formation of some pollutants, through chemical reac-
tions in the atmosphere, also makes attribution of ambient pollutant levels
to traffic sources difficult. Furthermore, impacts of GHGs on populations
are not related to direct exposure to emissions or resultant pollutant con-
centrations. Due to these difficulties, surrogates of traffic emissions, such
as concentrations of specific pollutants that have large vehicular-source
contributions (e.g., CO, NOx, EC, PM2.5) and measures of traffic itself
(such as traffic density), are commonly used in equity assessments of
exposure-related equity impacts. Although no surrogate has been found to
be ideal (Health Effects Institute. Panel on the Health Effects of Traffic-
Related Air, 2010), nitrogen dioxide (NO2, a component of NOx) is often
used because its level has been found to be influenced by traffic counts
(Rijnders et al., 2001; Stuart and Zeager, 2011) and it also has greater spa-
tial heterogeneity than some other traffic-related air pollutants (Jerrett
et al., 2005).
Although direct measurement is possible, exposure to traffic emissions
in the transportation equity literature is typically estimated using two
steps. The first step estimates the distribution of traffic-related air pollution
(or surrogates) in the study area, and the second step estimates exposures
by matching pollution levels with humans, based on their location in
space and/or time.
5.2.1. Measurement of traffic-related air pollution
Generally, there are four methods for estimating levels of traffic-related
air pollution that are regularly used in the transportation field. This section
will provide a brief overview of each method.
5.2.1.1. Monitoring of ambient pollutant concentrations. Monitoring is the
most straightforward way to measure ambient pollution. It uses samplers
or monitoring instruments to collect pollution samples at fixed sites or on
mobile vehicles. Concentrations can be determined through in-situ or labo-
ratory analysis. A few traffic-related pollutants (CO, NO2, PM2.5) are rou-
tinely monitored throughout the U.S., but monitoring networks are very
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Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx
sparse and generally inadequate for intra-urban equity analyses. Hence,
dedicated fixed-site or mobile monitoring campaigns are often used to
capture the variability of traffic-related pollutant concentrations at high
spatial resolution. As good indicators for traffic pollution, NO2/NOx is
often sampled to represent traffic pollution levels. Different samplers such
as the Ogawa passive samplers (Stuart and Zeager, 2011) or IVL passive
samplers (Habermann et al., 2015) can be used to measure NO2 concentra-
tions. As monitoring data are rarely available for each specific unit of
analysis needed, regression models are often applied to this data (as
discussed in Section 5.2.1.4) to estimate pollutant concentrations at
unsampled locations.
5.2.1.2. Measures of nearby traffic. Nearby traffic characteristics such as traf-
fic density can be used as surrogates for traffic pollution when no traffic-
related air pollution data are available. Studies have shown that traffic
density can influence NO2 concentration levels near roadways (Rijnders
et al., 2001; Stuart and Zeager, 2011). For the calculation of traffic density
within a spatial unit, refer to (Tian et al., 2013). Other indicators of traffic
pollution include highest annual average daily traffic (AADT), distance to
a high-volume roadway, and number of roads (Health Effects Institute.
Panel on the Health Effects of Traffic-Related Air, 2010).
5.2.1.3. Modeling of traffic emissions and dispersion. Modeling of traffic emis-
sions and their dispersion to estimate ambient pollutant concentrations can
provide highly-resolved estimates of traffic-related air pollution within a
research area. Generally, the process can be divided into three steps, as
shown in Fig. 2:
The first step estimates characteristics of roadway travel conditions
such as vehicle volume and travel speeds on a road segment within a time
interval. These features are input to a traffic emissions model. Two methods
are commonly used to estimate these values: travel demand modeling
(e.g., activity-based travel demand model) (Hatzopoulou and Miller,
2010; Sider et al., 2015; Yu and Stuart, 2016) or direct calculation based
on available data (e.g., AADT) (Yu and Stuart, 2016). The second step esti-
mates link-based or area-based emission inventories through complex emis-
sion models such as the USEPA MOVES model. The majority of studies have
used a single pollutant such as NO2 as an indicator of traffic pollution when
producing emission inventories. In addition to the rate and location of emis-
sions provided by inventory data, other factors such as winds and land use
can impact the fate and transport of traffic emissions. Dispersion modeling
integrates these factors to produce a high-resolution map of pollutant con-
centrations throughout a study domain. CALPUFF, AERMOD and RLINE
are popular dispersion models used in the transportation context. Other
simplified proximity-based modeling methods, such as the use of rounded
buffer zones around road links to approximate the effects of dispersion
(Sider et al., 2015), have also been applied.
5.2.1.4. Land use regression (LUR) modeling. LUR is the newest addition to
pollution modeling and has become very popular in the last 10 years. It is
used to estimate the small-scale spatial variations in pollutant concentra-
tions for intra-urban analyses. LUR models have the basic form:
Pollutant Concentration ¼ ðβ0 þ β1 X 1 þ β2 X 2 ∙∙∙βx X x Þ þ ɛ ð1Þ
LUR models estimate the above βi coefficients by regressing measured
ambient pollution concentration levels against independent variables (Xi)
such as land-use, nearby traffic counts, elevation, etc. Once the variable co-
efficients are determined, the model can be applied to estimate pollution
levels for unsampled locations. The process of modeling has four steps: 1.
Fig. 2. Traffic emissions and dispersion modeling process.
Y. Guo et al.
pollutant concentration sampling, 2. independent variable selection and
quantification, 3. regression modeling to determine the coefficients, and
4. model validation and evaluation.
Pollutant concentration sampling was described at Section 5.2.1.1. The
concentration of a single pollutant (e.g., NO2) is often used as the indicator
for traffic pollution and as the dependent variable for the regression model.
The independent variables can be unique for different cities and usually are
characterized for buffers areas surrounding each concentration measure-
ment site location. In Ryan and LeMasters (2007), independent variables
are grouped into four classes: road type, traffic count, elevation, and land
cover. To assist the selection of independent variables, statistical ap-
proaches such as AIC/BIC (Dirgawati et al., 2015) and stepwise linear re-
gression (Wang et al., 2013) can be adopted. The Variance Inflation
Factor (VIF) has also been applied to ensure the final model is not affected
by multicollinearity (Dirgawati et al., 2015). After building the multivari-
able regression model, the performance can be evaluated by cross valida-
tion (Wang et al., 2013; Dirgawati et al., 2015) and root mean square
error (RMSE) (Brauer et al., 2003). The final model can be used to predict
pollutant concentrations for unsampled locations with available predictor
data for those locations. A few studies (Eeftens et al., 2011; Cesaroni
et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2013) have explored the prediction power of
LUR modeling and found that it performs very well for long-term forecast-
ing, whereas hindcasting has lower accuracy.
5.2.1.5. Comparison of methods for measuring traffic-related air pollution.
Overall, each method has its own advantages and disadvantages. When to
apply each method really depends on the scenario of study.
• Pollution monitoring: Direct measurement provides the pollution concen-
tration level at a site. However, if the study area is very large (such as a
state or county), it is expensive and impractical to distribute enough sam-
plers to capture the spatial variation of pollution concentrations. How-
ever, monitoring can be combined with other methods such as LUR to
predict concentration level at unsampled locations.
• Measures of nearby traffic: This is the simplest approach to estimating
traffic pollution and relies on readily available data. However, the link be-
tween traffic density levels and pollutant concentrations is not fully un-
derstood (Rowangould, 2013), and measures of traffic do not capture
the effects of meteorology, such as winds, temperature, etc. Furthermore,
using AADT to estimate traffic density can be biased because AADT data
do not typically include traffic counts on small local roads and so cannot
represent all traffic counts within a measured area.
• Traffic emissions and dispersion modeling: Although modeling provides
estimates of traffic-related air pollution at user-defined resolution that is
based on the established knowledge of air pollution physics and chemis-
try, its application requires advanced familiarity with those topics and re-
lated mathematics, substantial amounts of specialized data, and
significant computational resources. These characteristics have restricted
widespread use in the multiple fields that study impacts of traffic emis-
sions.
• LUR: LUR allows high-resolution estimation of pollution using available
data and statistical methods that are familiar to researchers in many
fields. However, most LUR studies to assess equity have used short-term
monitoring campaign data that ignore temporal variations in pollution
(Habermann et al., 2015). Also, there is an issue of the availability of pre-
dictor variable data. For example, the household density and industrial
area data may not be available for all years of modeling interest or for
the same year that the pollution concentration was measured; this
might also influence the quality of the LUR model (Dirgawati et al.,
2015).
de Hoogh et al. (2014) compared the use of LUR and dispersion
modeling of annual-average concentrations of a few traffic-related
pollutants against measured pollution data for 13 study areas. Results sug-
gest that both methods are useful for studying small-scale variations of
traffic pollution.
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5.2.2. Measurement of exposure to traffic pollution
A person's total daily exposure to pollutants depends on where they
travel, time spent in vehicles, being indoors and outdoors, ventilation of
buildings, etc. (Rowangould, 2013). Due to the natural complexity of travel
behavior, individual or population exposures are usually simplified and es-
timated by two approaches: fixed-location approach and activity-based
approach.
A fixed-location approach estimates individual or population exposure
based on residential address, school location, etc., by estimating the con-
centration at that location. Population data are commonly only available
aggregated to a spatial area, such as residential demographic data for the
census block level. Hence exposure is often determined at an aggregate spa-
tial level. For population subgroups, group-average exposure can be esti-
mated by summing over all spatial areas the products of the subgroup
population and the pollution level specific to that spatial area, and dividing
the sum by the total subgroup population of the study area. If concentration
data are time varying (e.g., hourly), then temporal statistics of exposure,
such as maximum hourly exposure or daily average exposure can also be es-
timated (Yu and Stuart, 2013). The disadvantage of using a fixed-location
approach is that it does not capture population activity patterns.
The activity-based approach estimates exposures based on tracking in-
dividuals throughout their daily activities. Individual exposure can be esti-
mated by summing the product of pollutant concentration and time spent at
each activity location. The activity locations of individuals can be obtained
from the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) (Gurram et al., 2015)
or activity-based travel demand models (Hatzopoulou and Miller, 2010;
Gurram, 2017; Gurram et al., 2018). Different from Gurram et al. (2015,
2019), Hatzopoulou and Miller (2010) did not consider exposures during
travel; they argued that in-vehicle exposures are significantly different
from ambient air concentrations.
Comparing individual exposure results from an activity-based analysis
with those from a fixed-location analysis based on residential location,
Gurram et al. (2015) suggested that the residence-based exposure approach
may misclassify the exposures of socially-disadvantaged population groups
less than those of others.
5.3. Cost/benefit measures related to traffic safety
Studies of traffic safety have mainly focused on injuries or death caused
by motor vehicle accidents. Factors that can influence traffic injuries/casual-
ties have been studied extensively, including population socio-demographics
(e.g., race, income), physical development (e.g., employment density), and
environmental factors (e.g., road density, traffic density) in an area
(Kravetz and Noland, 2012). The cost/benefit measures typically used to
quantify traffic safety for equity studies include the crash rate or counts of in-
juries and fatalities. For example, the crash rate can be quantified as the num-
ber of people from a specified population group injured in a census area
divided by total population of that group in that area. Studies of equity be-
tween races commonly adopt this measure. Examples of measures used for
injuries and fatalities have included simply the number of pedestrian injuries
in a census area or the number of crashes per 100,000 people. Unlike cost/
benefit measurement approaches for accessibility and traffic pollution,
which may involve formula calculations and modeling, the cost/benefit mea-
sures of traffic safety are mainly directly obtained from data sources that
focus on pedestrian, cyclist, and driver injuries and casualties. Kravetz and
Noland (2012) and Noland et al. (2013) extracted crash data from the
Plan4Safety database, which has comprehensive records of crashes occurring
in New Jersey, including date of time, place, severity, vehicle actions and di-
rections, environmental and surface conditions, occupants and pedestrians
involved, driver characteristics, etc. The geocoded crash data were aggre-
gated to the census block-group level for equity analysis. Similarly,
Steinbach et al. (2010) and Steinbach et al. (2016) obtained STATS19 child
injury data from the London Road Safety Unit that includes all reported cau-
salities and traffic collisions in London. The crash data location was assigned
to a lower super output area (LSOA) for equity analysis purposes.
Y. Guo et al.
However, frequently-used administrative data has the limitation of
under-reporting, especially related to slight injuries. Police may focus on ac-
cidents that legally must be reported but may ignore accidents not involv-
ing motor vehicles. For example, STATS19 data cover accidents on public
highways but exclude single bicycle incidents and pedestrian falls
(Aldred, 2018). As summarized by Ahmed et al. (2017), the percentage
error reporting (under-reporting) for developed countries is low for fatal in-
juries, but it can be more than 40% for slight injury accidents. There are
many methods to rectify the data, the most popular of which is the
capture-recapture method. Other methods including comparison with
health sector data and probabilistic linkage. But it is not the focus of this
paper to discuss data enhancement. Kraemer and Benton (2015) adopted
the capture-recapture method to assemble the data, which combines data
from two independent registries of fatal crashes of wheelchair users. One
registry used the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS); preliminary assess-
ment, however, indicates incompleteness of data. A second registry was
constructed by searching keywords in a LexisNexis U.S. newspaper data-
base. The unmatched data from the news were sought in the FARS data-
base; almost all unmatched cases were identified in FARS, as those data
failed to be coded as wheelchair users. Besides administrative safety data,
Morency et al. (2012) used ambulance service data to collect information
on road traffic injuries, although ambulance service data naturally neglect
more light injuries. Aldred (2018) extracted data from the National Travel
Survey (NTS) in the UK, in which respondents were asked to recall if they
were involved in road accidents over the previous three years; details
such as injury, treatment, police involvement, and mode used were re-
corded. Although the data do not include geospatial information on acci-
dents, the detailed personal information (e.g., income, gender, age) and
accident data still provide insights regarding equity issues.
Overall, while using transportation safety data, it is important to fully
understand the dataset to avoid bias caused by missing data.
6. Equity assessment approaches
Various approaches for assessing equity in transportation system perfor-
mance have been proposed in the past few decades, which are broadly di-
vided into three categories in this paper. The following subsections
discuss each equity assessment method.
6.1. Mismatch analysis
Mismatch analysis of simple descriptive statistics of the cost/benefit
measures is a typical approach to study the equity performance of a trans-
portation system; its history dates back to the very earliest study measuring
the performance of public transport in meeting the transport needs for dif-
ferent demographic groups (Currie, 2004). Basically, this method presents
the distributions of the cost/benefit measures as maps or tables and then
manually compares the distributions. With these maps or tables, an intui-
tive understanding of the equity performance for each zone or population
group can be obtained.
A very simple approach following this idea is to map the statistics of
population measures and of the cost/benefit measures in two different
maps (usually using GIS), where each spatial zone has one color on a
scale from the lowest to the highest quintile of the distributions (Kaplan
et al., 2014). The statistical metrics are usually the average values (of the
measures) for a zone but, in some situations, median, maximum, minimum,
and standard deviation have also been used (El-Geneidy et al., 2016). This
simple mapping approach can present much macroscopic information in a
very intuitive and compact way such that it has been used extensively in
assessing both horizontal and vertical equity. If one wants to assess horizon-
tal equity, the cost/benefit measures in each zone within the studied area
need to be plotted (Golub and Martens, 2014). To assess vertical equity,
both the population characteristics and the cost/benefit measures can be
plotted in two maps and then the distributions of these two maps can be
compared (Kaplan et al., 2014). Note that when the number of zones or
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Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx
groups is not large, a map is not needed; the statistical metrics can be sum-
marized in tables and compared directly (Stuart and Zeager, 2011; El-
Geneidy et al., 2016; Boarnet et al., 2017).
Although the mapping approach can offer intuitive information, it can
be cumbersome to manually identify gaps in equity from the maps for all
zones in a large metropolitan area. Thus, simplified approaches have been
proposed. Currie (2010) plotted the supply versus demand for each zone
within the study area on a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate graph.
In this way, zones with different degrees of inequality (between supply
and demand) clustered in different regions in the graph and, thus, were
very efficiently identified. For instance, zones that fell into the southeast
corner in the coordinate system had the highest demand but the lowest
transit supply, which reflects the highest degree of inequality. Another
method is to combine the population and cost/benefit measures to obtain
a new measure (if possible) and then plot the combined measure. For in-
stance, to analyze transit provision with respect to social needs in Mel-
bourne, Currie (2010) defined the need-gap of a zone as the difference
between its transport provision and need index. This measure links trans-
port provision and the population's heterogeneity in terms of their travel
needs and offers an opportunity to analyze the vertical equity with respect
to the mobility need and ability. A similar method was applied to investi-
gate the disparity between transport provision and social exclusion in
Cali, Colombia, by taking transport social needs into account (Delmelle
and Casas, 2012). Later, Ricciardi et al. (2015) replaced need index values
with potential demands generated from the Distribution Fit Tool in Matlab
studio, based on which the equity distributions of three separate social dis-
advantaged groups (i.e., older adults, low-income, and households without
a car) were investigated.
Note that although mismatch analysis is quite simple and intuitive, it
does not offer quantitative information on equity performance. Therefore,
some quantitative analysis approaches based on statistical and econometric
approaches or inequality index formulations have been proposed.
6.2. Statistical approaches
To quantify inequality for the purposes of assessment of both horizontal
and vertical inequity, statistical and econometric measures are commonly
applied. For horizontal inequity, univariate measures of the dispersion of
the distribution of a cost/benefit measure among geographic units (such
as census block groups) can be used. These include the variance or standard
deviation of the distribution, the range or inter-decile range, or the ratio of
a high to low value, such as the ratio of the 95th to 5th%ile value in the dis-
tribution. For example, Yu and Stuart (2013) evaluated the spatial distribu-
tions of NOx exposure in Hillsborough County Florida by the standard
deviation and range. Delmelle and Casas (2012) applied the standard devi-
ation to quantify the inequality of public transit need/provision gap among
spatial districts.
Methods such as analysis of variance (ANOVA), correlation analysis,
and regression modeling are also widely used to assess vertical transporta-
tion equity. Stuart and Zeager (2011) used bivariate linear correlations to
investigate relationships between NO2 exposure and race-based percentage
enrollments of elementary school students. Sider et al. (2015) used one-way
ANOVA to determine whether levels of exposure to traffic emissions were
significantly different between groups with different social disadvantage
index values.
One-way ANOVA and bivariate correlation analysis are straightforward
methods for exploring the relationship between a cost/benefit measure and
one socio-demographic factor (e.g., race). A more comprehensive approach
is to consider more factors that may influence the cost/benefit measure,
through regression modeling with multiple explanatory variables. For ex-
ample, additional factors such as household income and education level
have been found to contribute to overall inequality. In such models, the
sign of the coefficient on an explanatory variable provides the direction of
the relationship between that factor and the cost/benefit measure, while
the magnitude of the coefficient is often used as a measure of the strength
of the relationship (or level of inequality).
Y. Guo et al.
To study the equity of exposures to traffic emissions, logistic regression
or spatial autoregressive (SAR) modeling have been applied. Buzzelli and
Jerrett (2007) simplified exposure to a binary categorical variable,
e.g., low and high exposure, and used logistic regression to capture the fac-
tors (number of dwelling, low income, low education, medium income,
race, etc.) that explain high and low exposures in Toronto. Buzzelli and
Jerrett (2007) and Havard et al. (2009) both found spatial correlation in
the distributions of NO2 in their study area and applied SAR models to ac-
count for this factor. For traffic safety, negative binomial regression
(Kravetz and Noland, 2012; Harper et al., 2015) and Poisson regression
(Morency et al., 2012; Zhang and Lin, 2013) are commonly used, as traffic
accidents are infrequent discrete events whose frequency can typically de-
scribed by using a Poisson or negative binomial distribution. For example,
Morency et al. (2012) used a multilevel Poisson regression model to exam-
ine the disparity between wealthy and poor urban areas in traffic injuries at
intersections, as well as the influence of roadway environmental factors
(such as population density and traffic estimates) on that relationship.
Statistical and econometric approaches are particularly appropriate for
analyzing vertical equity because of their capacity for describing the rela-
tionship between transportation costs/benefits and sociodemographic attri-
butes. Insights into horizontal equity can also be obtained using simple
statistics of dispersion in the univariate distribution of the cost/benefit
measures across geographic units of analysis.
6.3. Inequality indicator-based approaches
Although statistical approaches offer profound information on the rela-
tionship between different sociodemographic attributes and transportation
costs/benefits, they do not provide an overall level of inequality that can be
compared between cases. A solution to this drawback is the application of
inequality indices, which have been extensively used in economics, social
science, and public health. These offer a quantitative measure of the degree
of inequality in any variable, such as income, distributed over a population.
Popular inequality indicators include the Gini index, Atkinson index, Theil's
entropy index, etc.
In transportation, Gini index is the most extensively used indicator. The
Gini index traditionally has been used to evaluate the distribution of wealth
or income among a population. Delbosc and Currie (2011) first applied the
Gini index along with the Lorenz curve to analyze equity performance in
transit supply in Melbourne. The Gini index ranges from 0 to 1, with 0 indi-
cating perfect equality and 1 perfect inequality. Due to the computational
tractability and intuition of the Gini index, many studies have followed
the pioneering work of Currie and used the Gini index as an overall index
of the equity performance in transportation systems (Welch and Mishra,
2013; Kaplan et al., 2014; Guzman et al., 2017). The Gini index can be eas-
ily adapted to various contexts and used for evaluating horizontal equity for
both the entire population and a targeted population group.
Although the Gini index has many good properties, it also has limita-
tions for equity analyses. For example, it is not decomposable into additive
attributions from subgroups or factors (Levy et al., 2006; World Bank,
2005); this limitation can be detrimental to vertical equity analysis. Also,
the implicit weighting of the Gini index's underlying social welfare func-
tion, and the value judgments implied for the cost/benefit distribution,
are somewhat arbitrary (Weymark, 1981). This can be limiting for policy
implications. For example, if a city wants to invest money to improve transit
accessibility and decrease inequity, they may want to apply an equity in-
dictor that values improved accessibility in areas with the least prior transit
development more highly than areas that are already very connected. To
address these limitations, other indices have been developed, such as
Atkinson index.
The Atkinson index was first developed to quantify income inequality
(Atkinson, 1970) and has been applied extensively in the environmental
justice contexts. Like the Gini index, the Atkinson index ranges between 0
and 1, with 0 indicating complete equality and 1 indicating complete in-
equality. The Atkinson index is subgroup decomposable and incorporates
an inequality aversion parameter that can be adjusted to more heavily
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Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx
weigh costs/benefits for those at the low end of the cost/benefit distribu-
tion. This parameter ranges from 0 to infinity, with 0 indicating no societal
concern with inequality, and a higher value indicating more concern for the
low cost/benefit (e.g., income) group. After comparing a variety of inequity
indicators for health benefits analysis, the Atkinson index was suggested by
Levy et al. (2006) as the best indicator for inequality evaluation in health
benefit analysis. Levy et al. (2009) applied the Atkinson Index to quantify
the inequality benefits of different mobile source control strategies in
Boston.
In addition to borrowing concepts of inequality indicators from eco-
nomics, environmental and transportation researchers have also developed
inequality indicators that intuitively quantify disparities between popula-
tions groups. Harner et al. (2002) developed several indicators, including
the Comparative Environmental Risk Index (CERI), which quantifies
whether socio-demographically disadvantaged groups are more likely to
be exposed to environmental hazards than the rest of population. For exam-
ple, to compare pollution exposure between white and non-white popula-
tions, they used the following formula:
 
at risk nonwhites
total MSA nonwhites
CERI nw ¼   ; ð2Þ
at risk whites
total MSA whites
where MSA is the Metropolitan Statistical Area. If CERInw is greater than 1,
non-whites are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards, and
vice versa. The CERI index can also be used for other subgroups, such as
poor people. The CERI is equivalent to the concept of relative risk in epide-
miology; it quantifies the relative risk of exposure for a subgroup. Similarly,
Stuart et al. (2009) developed a subgroup index of inequality that quantifies
the degree to which a specific subgroup is disproportionately exposed to
both costs (e.g., pollutant emission sources) and benefits (e.g., regulatory
monitoring) of an environmental management system. This subgroup in-
equality index is formulated as:
 
Zi
F i ¼ log ; ð3Þ
Ti
where i indicates the subgroup (such as African Americans), Z is the fraction
that subgroup comprises of the population exposed to a particular hazard
(or benefit) level, and T is the overall fraction that subgroup comprises of
the larger study area population (such as a county). This quantitative
index is easy to interpret. Positive F indicates that members of the subgroup
(on average) are disproportionately exposed to the hazard (or benefit) at
the level considered; negative F means they are disproportionately unex-
posed at this level. Yu and Stuart (2013, 2016) and Gurram et al. (2015,
2019) have used this subgroup inequality index to study inequity in expo-
sures to traffic-related air pollution in Tampa.
7. Equity results and policy implications for traditional transportation
system
As previously mentioned, equity can be evaluated from horizontal and
vertical perspectives. Horizontal equity considers whether similar individ-
uals or groups are treated with same benefits/costs. Vertical equity con-
siders whether different sociodemographic or need subgroups receive the
same benefits/costs. As they evaluate the equity from different perspec-
tives, practical implications are also different. If analysis of horizontal
equity shows significant inequality, policies could be targeted at areas
with low accessibility or high traffic emissions, etc. If vertical equity indi-
cates significant inequality among population subgroups, then actions
could be taken to enhance the benefits for disadvantaged populations.
However, horizontal and vertical equity are not necessarily correlated.
Boyce et al. (2016) measured horizontal and vertical equity of environmen-
tal pollution for all 50 U.S. states and did not identify a correlation between
horizontal equity and vertical equity. Similarly, disadvantaged population
Y. Guo et al.
groups identified from vertical equity analyses may not match with the dis-
advantaged areas identified from horizontal equity analyses. For practical
applications, both horizontal and vertical equity should be measured to un-
derstand the overall equity performance of a system. While implementing a
project, equity is usually one of the goals in the project framework, and pol-
icy makers need to make trade-offs between the two equity measures based
on the other project objectives, goals, and values. This section discusses the
equity issues and policy implications related with accessibility, traffic emis-
sions, and safety.
7.1. Transportation equity issues
Title VI of Civil Right Act of 1964 mandates non-discrimination in pro-
grams that receive federal funds, including transportation programs. None-
theless, the performance of transportation systems remains inequitable for
different socio-demographic groups. Litman and Brenman (2012) have crit-
icized most transportation policies and practices as favoring automobiles
over other transportation modes, despite economically and socially disad-
vantaged populations tending to heavily rely on non-motorized transport
modes. Also, there are disparities in public investment among different
socio-demographic populations (Kravetz and Noland, 2012).
Several studies have found that disadvantaged groups enjoy the highest
accessibility to public transportation in many cities, such as Inner Mel-
bourne (Delbosc and Currie, 2011), Perth (Ricciardi et al., 2015), the San
Diego Metropolitan Area (Boarnet et al., 2017), the San Francisco Bay
Area (Golub and Martens, 2014) and Bogota (Guzman et al., 2017). How-
ever, because automobiles can bring better accessibility to activities and
destinations over a larger area (Golub and Martens, 2014) and because
high-income groups have higher car accessibility (Guzman et al., 2017),
the accessibility of low-income and minority groups is lower than other
groups when both public transport and automobiles are taken into account
(Kawabata, 2009; Grengs, 2010; Golub and Martens, 2014; El-Geneidy
et al., 2016).
In terms of exposures to direct traffic pollution, populations that are
white and have high income have been found to be less exposed (Stuart
et al., 2009; Tian et al., 2013; Yu and Stuart, 2013; Gurram et al., 2015).
Disadvantaged communities in Montreal were also found to be exposed to
higher levels of pollution, but contribute very little emissions (Sider et al.,
2015). Although socially-advantaged groups have generally been shown
to enjoy greater health benefits of transportation, locality and other factors
can cause variations in this overall trend. For example, Yu and Stuart
(2016) evaluated exposures to multiple traffic-related pollutants in
Tampa and found that white and high-income people were disproportion-
ately exposed to high levels of some pollutants (acetaldehyde and formalde-
hyde), but low levels of other pollutants (NOx, benzene, and butadiene).
Buzzelli and Jerrett (2007) also found that areas of high income and dwell-
ing values in central Toronto were susceptible to exposure.
For traffic safety, populations that have high income (Kravetz and
Noland, 2012; Morency et al., 2012), high education (Harper et al.,
2015), and high white population density (Zhang and Lin, 2013; Yu,
2014) have been found to have fewer vehicle accident injuries and deaths.
Furthermore, Harper et al. (2015) found that inequity in vehicle accident
deaths for socially-disadvantaged populations worsened over time in their
study of trends from 1995 and 2010.
7.2. Policy implications
From the research outcomes, it has been shown that inequity remains a
prevalent issue. Minority or socially disadvantaged populations generally
suffer more from negative transportation impacts. An easy way for trans-
portation planners to tackle equity issues is to focus on areas with a high
share of people who belong to low-income, low-education, and minority
groups (Gaffron, 2012; Tian et al., 2013). Many studies also propose
other approaches to improve the equity of the system, as discussed below.
To improve equity of accessibility, it is essential for policy makers to
provide accessible, efficient and affordable public transit for disadvantaged
9
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx
areas. For example, transportation planners can subsidize on-demand ser-
vices for low-income residents to improve their accessibility from home
to bus/transit stations (Boarnet et al., 2017). While planning transit stations
for deprived communities, planners should also ensure high connectivity of
stations rather than simply their accessibility (Welch and Mishra, 2013). In
terms of transit fares, transit planners can assess the impact of fare struc-
tures on accessibility for different areas in the city, based on their level of
socio-deprivation (El-Geneidy et al., 2016). This is important because it
has been shown that people who have access to high quality public transit
are more likely to get employed and earn a higher average salary (Yi, 2006).
For inequity of exposure to traffic emissions, a significant contributor is
residential segregation, i.e., disadvantaged populations often live near
roadway sources (Yu and Stuart, 2016). Thus, it is suggested to reduce mo-
bile emissions from areas where disadvantaged populations live and spend
time (Yu and Stuart, 2013). Suggestions include promoting public transit
(Tian et al., 2013) and active transportation, setting low-emission zones
in highly polluted areas, and setting tighter urban planning standards for es-
tablishing sensitive facilities near roadways (Carrier et al., 2017). For exam-
ple, California Senate Bill 352 prohibits siting a school within 500 ft. of a
busy traffic corridor or freeway.
Traffic safety results from the interaction between built environment
design and human behaviors (Ewing and Dumbaugh, 2009). In disadvan-
taged communities, road infrastructure and facilities are often inferior to
those in rich communities. However, people who live in poor areas are
more likely to use active transportation (e.g., walking, biking) due to lack
of private vehicles (Kravetz and Noland, 2012). Thus, disadvantaged popu-
lations have more exposure to unsafe traffic, which results in more acci-
dents. To improve safety conditions, policy makers should ensure that
sidewalks and bike lanes in disadvantaged areas are good quality, well-
maintained and well-connected, providing a safer environmental for active
transportation.
Besides the above discussions, the current scope of transportation eq-
uity considerations also has some limitations. First, current transportation
equity evaluations only consider a subset of all social equity issues
(Litman and Brenman, 2012). For example, the ‘intangible’ transportation
outcomes, such as walkability or livability, are overlooked. While ‘tangible’
outcomes such as reduced traffic congestion, improved transit coverage, are
easier to measure and present to the public; thus they have become the
focus of social equity considerations and are prioritized over the ‘intangible’
outcomes (Handy, 2008). For effective decision making, it is essential to in-
tegrate all factors into a transportation equity analysis framework. Second,
consideration of equity issues is challenged by the need to balance the di-
verse goals of a project. Transportation planners need to carefully consider
the trade-offs between improving equity and the value of other social ben-
efits provided by the transportation system, making the system more sus-
tainable. Martens et al. (2012) suggest that planners should limit the gap
between highest and lowest accessibility, meanwhile attempting to maxi-
mize the average benefits for the public.
8. Applications of the framework to emerging transportation
technologies
In this paper, we focus on the emerging transportation technologies or
services of shared mobility (bike sharing and car sharing), ride hailing,
and electric and autonomous vehicles. There is substantial excitement
that these new transportation modes could potentially reduce the equity
gap within the current transportation network. For example, bike sharing
can be used as a feeder mode to public transit for people who do not live
in an accessible area. Furthermore, Bösch et al. (2018) have suggested
that if car sharing and carpooling are equipped with autonomous vehicle
technologies and are electric vehicles in the future, the cost of usage
could be reduced to less than $0.2 per mile. With such low costs and zero
direct emissions, they have the potential to significantly improve the mobil-
ity and air quality of disadvantaged areas. However, given the gains that are
possible, we must ensure the benefits are distributed in a fair manner.
Y. Guo et al.
Current studies on the equity performance of emerging transportation
technologies are still in their infancy; only limited research has been con-
ducted and is mainly focused on shared mobility. However, we found that
these equity assessment methods still follow the three-step framework
discussed above. In this section, we summarize the equity measurement
methodologies that have been applied to emerging transportation technol-
ogies, along with the expected equity outcomes and policy implications.
8.1. Equity assessment framework for emerging transportation technologies
The section summarizes equity assessment frameworks that have been
applied for emerging transportation systems in terms of accessibility, traffic
emissions and safety.
8.1.1. Accessibility
After surveying studies on equity evaluation of emerging transportation
technologies, we find that the applied methods also follow the three-step
framework. Table 1 presents the measurements used for each step in the
three-step framework from these studies. As shown in Table 1, the ap-
proaches for measurement of the population and of inequity have all been
covered in the discussion of traditional transportation systems, while not
all accessibility measurement approaches are the same.
The accessibility measurement methods for shared mobility systems
(e.g., bike-sharing, car-sharing) can be divided into two categories. The
first category treats registered system users as those having accessibility
to bike-sharing services. Gavin et al. (2016) used an online survey to collect
demographic data of bike sharing users and analyzed equity based on user
profiles. Other studies used the number of times a bike was used per cus-
tomer (which can be computed from the system's operational data) as a sur-
rogate accessibility measure, to evaluate equity among different
demographic groups (Ogilvie and Goodman, 2012; Wang and Akar,
2019). The second category defines the coverage/service area of a shared
mobility system using buffers around sharing stations, and defines those
who reside within the coverage/service area as having accessibility.
These studies have been primarily focused on station-based systems. Due
to the similarity between station-based shared mobility systems and tradi-
tional public transit systems, the coverage-based approach for the latter
has been applied for analyzing station-based shared-mobility systems
(Ursaki and Aultman-Hall, 2016; Gavin et al., 2016). However, this ap-
proach ignores the true supply of shared bikes due to factors such as the sta-
tion size, number of bikes at a station and rebalancing strategies. Therefore,
other studies have adopted the mean density or availability of shared bikes
or cars within the census area as the measure of accessibility (Shellooe,
2013; Couch and Smalley, 2019; Mooney et al., 2019). This method follows
a similar logic to the way Welch and Mishra (2013) refined accessibility
measurement for traditional public transportation systems. Yet, it fails to
consider temporal variations of bike/car supply at sharing stations
Table 1
Studies of equity of accessibility for emerging transportation technologies.
Population measurement Cost/benefit measurement
Census block level demographic data Accessibility (coverage-based approach)
Census block level demographic data Accessibility (coverage-based approach)
Bike sharing data, Census block level data, Bike drop offs by gender
land use, time of day, weather, etc.
Census block level demographic data Spatial access for shared dockless bikes (Bike
availability, rebalancing)
Census tract level demographic data Counts of available bikes
Census block level demographic data Accessibility (coverage-based approach)
(Bike equity index)
Census tract level demographic data Car sharing density
Disaggregated individual data from travel Tour based accessibility
demand model
Disaggregated data from travel Job accessibility, trip duration, trip distance
demand model
10
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx
(i.e., bike/car surplus or shortage due to imbalanced travel demand),
which have required various rebalancing strategies to be applied in prac-
tice. Thus, more sophisticated accessibility measurement approaches that
capture the unique operational characteristics of station-based shared-
mobility systems are needed. An attempt to address this gap was found in
Mooney et al. (2019), where spatial equity in access to dockless bike-
sharing was investigated. They defined the demand as the mean of inverse
of idle time in a neighborhood per day while the supply was defined as the
average number of bikes rebalanced in a neighborhood per day. Then they
plotted the supply versus demand for each neighborhood in a two-
dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, which is essentially the same as
to the approach used by Currie (2010) for transit systems.
For ride-hailing services, user profiles have also been analyzed to reveal
equity impacts (Smith, 2016), with the underlying assumption that only
registered users have accessibility. Some researchers used ‘waiting time’
as a proxy for accessibility. Longer waiting time indicates the supply of ve-
hicles is lower than demand and thus indicates lower accessibility. To mea-
sure the waiting time, Hughes and MacKenzie (2016) and Stark and
Diakopoulos (2016) obtained ‘waiting time’ through the Uber API. Brown
(2018) conducted an audit study (i.e., they employed passengers to take
Lyft and record the waiting times) to obtain this information. This approach
aimed to measure the supply-demand gap of ride-hailing services, which is
similar to the need gap analysis in Currie (2010) for traditional transit sys-
tems, but with the gap measured by the waiting time. Other accessibility
measurement approaches for traditional transportation systems can also
be potentially used for ride-hailing services as researchers did for shared-
mobility systems. For example, to estimate the accessibility for ride hailing
services, an intuitive method would be to identify the distribution of trans-
portation network company (TNC) vehicles and passenger demand across
the spatial space. However, the ride-hailing companies rarely share their
operational data with researchers, making it nearly impossible to assess eq-
uity performance using this method and there is no research adopting this
method currently.
Although autonomous vehicles (AVs) are still under development, many
studies have evaluated their possible impacts on human travel behaviors
(Zhang et al., 2015; Zmud and Sener, 2017) while few studies have quanti-
tatively studied AVs' impacts on equity of accessibility among populations.
The only relevant literature we found is Cohn et al. (2019). They adopted a
travel demand modeling approach to estimate job accessibility, trip dura-
tion, trip distance for disadvantaged communities and others, based on
eight different AV scenarios. However, they assumed that each household
will own an AV, which weakens the generality of the results. For example,
if AVs are entirely shared like ride hailing services, waiting time and AV
density within a unit could also be a proxy for accessibility. However, if
AVs can serve as both private cars and shared mobility, more sophisticated
modeling approaches are needed to measure accessibility for AVs, which
has not been addressed in the existing literature. Further, though it is
Inequity measurement Citation
T-student test (Vertical equity) (Ursaki and
Aultman-Hall, 2016)
Chi-square test (Vertical equity) (Gavin et al., 2016)
Negative binomial regression (Vertical equity) (Wang and Akar, 2019)
Spatial mismatch analysis, descriptive statistics (Mooney et al., 2019)
(median), (Vertical equity)
Poisson regression (Vertical equity) (Couch and Smalley,
2019)
Spatial mismatch (Vertical equity) (Bhuyan et al., 2019)
Bivariate regression model (Vertical equity) (Shellooe, 2013)
Gini index (Horizontal equity); (Chen et al., 2019)
Subgroup inequality index (Vertical equity)
Descriptive statistics (average) (Vertical equity) (Cohn et al., 2019)
Y. Guo et al.
reasonable to use trip duration and trip distance to quantify accessibility,
different socio-demographic populations may perceive the importance of
travel time and distance differently depending on trip purpose. With disag-
gregated data from a travel demand model, such factors could also be con-
sidered in an accessibility measure.
8.1.2. Traffic emissions
Compared with accessibility, studies on the equity impacts of emerging
transportation systems in terms of environmental outcomes are rare. Gener-
ally, these impacts could be considered from two perspectives:
• Net impact - Emerging transportation technologies may influence traffic
emissions and their distribution across space in multiple conflicting
ways. What are the net impacts and how are they distributed spatially
and among different socio-demographic groups in society?
• User exposure - How does exposure to traffic emissions vary among differ-
ent population groups while using emerging transportation technologies?
The first perspective is rather difficult to address as it requires the esti-
mation of the net effects on traffic emissions and their spatial distribution.
Take ride hailing as an example, a small percentage of ride hailing users re-
duce vehicle ownership after using ride hailing (Clewlow and Mishra,
2017). However, ride hailing vehicle drivers also bring many vehicles
onto roads, causing substantial emissions. How much the net emissions
change due to both the additional vehicles and reduced car ownership is
hard to estimate, partially because operational data for ride hailing compa-
nies are not publicly available. A travel demand modeling approach may be
able to capture these changes, but no studies have done it yet. With bike
sharing operation data, Zhang and Mi (2018) attempted to estimate the en-
vironmental benefits of a bike sharing program from a spatial-temporal per-
spective. They assumed that bike sharing trip distances greater than 1 km
are energy saving (due to automobile substitution) and estimated saved pet-
rol, CO2 and NOx. CO2 and NOx concentrations were estimated using
MOVES as the emission model and AERMOD as the dispersion model;
this is consistent with the approach used for traffic pollution measurement
for traditional transportation systems. However, this study overlooks the
possibility that bike sharing trips may replace public transit (bus, metro),
so the benefits could be overestimated. To extend this study, the benefits
could be mapped on census areas so that equity could be evaluated using
spatial mismatch or inequality indicator approaches.
The second perspective might be more relevant to bike-sharing and e-
scooter sharing as riders directly expose themselves to the traffic emissions
while using these modes. For vehicle drivers or passengers, in-vehicle expo-
sures can be significantly different from ambient air concentrations
(Hatzopoulou and Miller, 2010). So far, only one paper has evaluated the
environment equity of emerging transportation modes from a user expo-
sure perspective. Qian and Wu (2019) assessed the equity of PM2.5 exposure
for a bike sharing program in Chicago. The analysis process exactly follows
the three-step framework discussed above, except for the population mea-
surement step, due to lack of user socio-demographic data. Instead, the au-
thors evaluated equity for trip types based on whether a trip began or ended
in disadvantaged areas. The PM2.5 concentration was obtained through air
quality modeling (MOVES and AERMOD) and exposure was estimated as
the product of time spent in each spatial unit and concentration for that
unit. Finally, equity for trip types was compared using descriptive statistics
(boxplots). As previously mentioned, a similar study could provide addi-
tional insights if socio-demographic information of trip users were known.
8.1.3. Safety
To the best knowledge of the authors, there are no studies evaluating
the equity of safety outcomes for emerging transportation technologies.
The lack of accident data relevant to emerging transportation technologies
could be the largest hurdle. If such data were available, the three-step
framework could be applied to assess equity in a similar manner to tradi-
tional transportation systems. Currently, many of the safety equity studies
have explored the disparity of accidents between different socio-
demographic groups. Some studies have also attempted to understand the
11
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx
neighborhood environmental factors that could possibly explain the dispar-
ities found (Kravetz and Noland, 2012). However, differences in pedes-
trian/cyclist behaviors among socio-demographic population groups are
less understood. Future studies could also assess interaction between
human behaviors and the emerging transportation technologies (e.g., e-
scooter sharing).
8.2. Equity outcomes and policy implications
Similar to traditional transportation modes, shared mobility programs
are also considered unfair overall in terms of accessibility. Ursaki and
Aultman-Hall (2016) compared social and economic characteristics of cen-
sus block groups that were within a service area to those outside a service
area for eight U.S. bike-sharing programs. Results indicate that the percent
of white, college-educated, higher-income people within the service area
was higher than that of the remaining groups in Chicago, Denver, Seattle,
and New York city. Similarly, an equity gap also exists in Baltimore
(Bhuyan et al., 2019) and Seattle (Mooney et al., 2019), and for a car shar-
ing program in New York (Shellooe, 2013). In terms of user profiles, Gavin
et al. (2016) surveyed three anonymous cities and reported that users were
more likely to be residents who are male, young, white, affluent, and edu-
cated. Several factors have been found to lead to unequal accessibility.
Firstly, as shared mobility companies are usually in the private sector,
their profit-driven strategy usually overlooks equity and pushes the services
out of reach to many disadvantaged areas. Sometimes, even if the program
places stations in those areas, they are not fully integrated with the main
cluster of stations, which limits the usefulness for adjacent users (Schmitt,
2012). Also, limited internet, smartphone and credit/debit card access re-
strict the use of bike sharing programs for disadvantaged populations
(Shaheen et al., 2017). In terms of environmental equity, bike sharing riders
in disadvantaged communities have also been found to bear higher traffic
exposures in Chicago, largely because those areas are close to major and
busy roadways (Qian and Wu, 2019).
Current research shows that white, affluent and highly educated popu-
lations usually enjoy most of the benefits of shared mobility services.
Hence, these services do not bring as many benefits to the people who
might need it the most. To promote a more equitable shared mobility sys-
tem, several actions could be taken. Shaheen et al. (2017) suggest that
the government could play a role by facilitating public and private partner-
ships and knowledge sharing among government agencies, attracting pri-
vate sector partners by providing subsidies for meeting community equity
goals, performing pilot studies and evaluations prior to setting standards
and regulations, ensuring policies are goal orientated rather than mitiga-
tion orientated, standardizing data sharing requirements for all service pro-
viders, and developing more rigorous equity metrics.
Although emerging transportation technologies and services are ad-
vancing rapidly, it is essential for governments to plan ahead and take a pro-
active approach by implementing policy frameworks that can prevent
inequity, rather than waiting for the diffusion of new technology to imple-
ment the policy.
8.3. Research gaps
This section identifies several gaps in the current research related to as-
sessment of equity for emerging transportation systems.
• Comparison of the equity performance between emerging systems and
baseline. Current studies on equity performance of emerging transporta-
tion systems (e.g., bike sharing programs) solely focus on the emerging
transportation systems, while the baseline disparity is usually ignored.
To truly reflect the impacts of a policy or program on equity, it is neces-
sary to compare the equity performance before and after the implementa-
tion of an emerging transportation technology.
• Integrated assessment with respect to accessibility, environment, and
public health. Equity research on emerging transportation technologies
has mainly focused on accessibility, while the equity of environmental
Y. Guo et al.
impact and of safety outcomes have not been frequently discussed, and no
integrated assessment considers all these aspects together. Furthermore,
there are several other environmental and public health related outcomes
of transportation programs that can have equity implications, such as im-
pacts on physical activity, noise, and climate and their subsequent health
effects on vulnerable populations. For practical implications, making
decisions based on one aspect alone can be erroneous. For example,
ride-hailing can significantly impact several outcomes. It improves acces-
sibility for people who do not have vehicles, but it also brings more vehi-
cles on the road; consequently more traffic emissions and traffic accidents
may occur. To assess whether the outcomes of this mode are equitable,
multiple aspects should be considered. However, no studies have been
carried out to evaluate equity from an integrated perspective for both tra-
ditional and emerging transportation system, nor does research discuss
the trade-offs and interactions among equity measures for the different
types of outcomes.
• Assessment under a multimodal transportation system context. Different
travel modes in a transportation system are interrelated with and affected
by each other, especially for many emerging transportation services. For
example, apart from providing stand-alone services for short-distance
travel, bike-sharing is also an effective solution to the first/last-mile prob-
lem for transit. In this context, analyzing a bike-sharing system without
considering public transit is not ideal. Also, a multimodal perspective is
important, as it can evaluate the overall equity performance of a transpor-
tation system instead of just one mode, which could be used to compare
the overall equity performance before and after the implementation of
an emerging transportation technology. Hence, developing a methodol-
ogy that can be applied in the context of a multimodal transportation sys-
tem should be an interesting future direction.
• Disaggregate measures with high-resolution inputs. Due to the lack of
high-resolution data, equity assessment of traditional transportation sys-
tems has usually adopted aggregate information on both population and
cost/benefit measures, e.g., zone-level information. This practice can pro-
vide a macroscopic assessment of the equity performance of a transporta-
tion system, but results in some errors. Many existing emerging
transportation technologies are based on smartphone applications or
website toolkits, e.g., Uber, Zipcar, Ofo, and some future technologies
are believed to be the same (http://www.next-future-mobility.com/).
This operational mode opens an opportunity to collect individual-level
population characteristics. Further, vehicles offering emerging transpor-
tation services are usually installed with GPS, which may offer
individual-level trajectory information. With this, the proposition of dis-
aggregate assessment approaches might be an interesting topic. How-
ever, if the private sector does not share the operation data with
researchers and planners, it will be hard to get a reliable equity esti-
mation. The governmental and industry sectors need to collaborate
to fill this gap. Besides operational data, the output from travel de-
mand model also offers individual level details that help disaggregate
analysis.
• Consideration of the operational characteristics of emerging transpor-
tation services. Many operational details concerning the service qual-
ity of an emerging transportation system are not the same as those in
traditional transportation services. For instance, in bike-sharing sys-
tems, rebalancing (redistributing bikes across the network using a
fleet of vehicles) is an important operation that can affect service qual-
ity. However, due to its uniqueness to such emerging services, effects
on equity performance have not been studied for traditional transpor-
tation systems. Thus, although measurements that can reflect the
service quality of traditional public transit systems are present, meth-
odologies that can capture more operational details are needed for
emerging transportation technologies.
• Assessment of other emerging technologies. As pointed out in
Section 8.1, only the equity performance of some bike sharing and
car sharing systems have been studied and most of them have focused
on accessibility outcomes. The equity performance of other emerging
transportation technologies such as electric vehicles, ride-sharing,
12
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx
and autonomous vehicles have not yet received enough attention in
the literature. There is also limited research on equity performant re-
lated to environmental impact and safety outcomes.
As research gaps indicate, equity evaluation of emerging transportation
technologies and services remains a challenging task. Not only do we need
to consider the equity from an integrated perspective which needs expertise
from various disciplines (e.g., accessibility, environment and safety), but
also better understand people's travel behaviors (e.g., through survey
data, operation data collection and analysis) and come up with meaningful
cost/benefit measures under new transportation systems (e.g., through pol-
icy makers). Though individual level of travel data potentially offers a more
accurate equity assessment, it can have high computational cost if the size
of study area is very large, this may require collaboration with expert
from computer science field. Overall, interdisciplinary efforts are necessary
to address these issues.
9. Conclusion
This paper summarizes a general framework that evaluates transporta-
tion equity from an interdisciplinary perspective that considers accessibil-
ity, environmental impact, and safety. The equity assessment framework
is divided into three components—population measurement, cost/benefit
measurement, and equity measurement—which are commonly applied in
the literature. Furthermore, we examined the equity evaluation papers for
emerging transportation technologies and found that the analysis method-
ologies still follow the three-step framework, though the specific cost/ben-
efit measurement approaches may vary. Further, we found the majority of
these studies have focused on equity impacts in terms of accessibility for
shared mobility. Rarely have researchers evaluted the equity performance
of other emering transportation systems, nor have they adequately assessed
the equity of environmental and safety impacts.
Overall, this paper offers a comprehensive review of equity assessment
methods in transportation systems from an integrated perspective consider-
ing accessibility, traffic emissions, and safety outcomes. The three-step tax-
onomy described here can serve as a convenient resource for transportation
planning agencies to find the measurement approaches they desire more ef-
ficiently. Research gaps identified also offer resources on future research di-
rections for equity studies of emerging transportation systems.
Acknowledgement
The authors gratefully acknowledge support provided by the Center for
Transportation, Environment, and Community Health (CTECH), University
Transportation Centers sponsored by the US Department of Transportation
through Grant No. 69A3551747119. The contents of this manuscript reflect
the views of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy
of the information presented herein. The contents do not necessarily reflect
the official views or policies of US Department of Transportation.
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