Airport Demand Forecasting for Long-Term Planning

Economic Benefits of Improving Transport
Accessibility
The economic benefits of improving transport accessibility for all are rarely
taken into account when making decisions about investment and regulations.
While costs are often known, benefits such as greater access to services, jobs andtourism are unknown or even undefined.
This report reviews economic theory and practical case studies to set out thebasis for the development of a common framework empowering decision-makers
to value the impacts greater accessibility for mobility-impaired, encumbered andultimately all passengers.

Economic Benefits of
Improving Transport
Accessibility

photo credit: NYC DOT

photo credit: NYC DOT

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Roundtable Report 165

International Transport Forum

2017

165

Roundtable ReportEconomic Benefits of
Improving Transport
Accessibility

165

Roundtable Report

The International Transport ForumThe International Transport Forum is an intergovernmental organisation with 57 member countries.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS – 5

Table of contents

Executive summary............................................................................................................................. 9
What we did ...................................................................................................................................... 9
What we found .................................................................................................................................. 9
What we recommend ......................................................................................................................... 9
Policy implications .......................................................................................................................... 10
Chapter 1. Summary and conclusions ............................................................................................ 11
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 12
The rationale for assessing the benefits of accessibility.................................................................. 14
Identification of beneficiaries and benefits ..................................................................................... 17
Measurement and valuation of benefits........................................................................................... 24
A way forward: Research and policy implications.......................................................................... 33
Notes ................................................................................................................................................... 35
References .......................................................................................................................................... 36
Chapter 2. Towards a framework for identifying and measuring the benefits ofaccessibility ........................................................................................................................................ 39
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 40
Accounting comprehensively for the benefits of accessibility: Towards an international standard 45
Conclusion....................................................................................................................................... 54
Note .................................................................................................................................................... 54
References .......................................................................................................................................... 55
Chapter 3. The economics of enhancing accessibility: Estimating the benefits and costs ofparticipation ...................................................................................................................................... 57
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 58
Case study ....................................................................................................................................... 63
Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 67
The economic model ....................................................................................................................... 68
Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... 69
Note .................................................................................................................................................... 72
References .......................................................................................................................................... 73
Chapter 4. Economic benefits of improved accessibility to transport systems and the role oftransport in fostering tourism for all .............................................................................................. 75
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 76
Studies analysing the economic benefit of accessibility measures in the transport sector .............. 81
The economic impact of accessible tourism in Europe and his reliance to the transport sector ..... 85
Conclusion....................................................................................................................................... 92
References .......................................................................................................................................... 93

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Chapter 5. The benefits of improving access to the United Kingdom rail network via theAccess For All Programme .............................................................................................................. 97
Introduction and scope .................................................................................................................... 98
Station Accessibility Audits ............................................................................................................ 99
Station user interviews .................................................................................................................. 103
Economic appraisal ....................................................................................................................... 109
Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 114
Notes ................................................................................................................................................. 115
Participants list ............................................................................................................................... 116
FiguresFigure 1.1. Framework for measuring the economic benefits of improved accessibility ................... 24
Figure 1.2. Benefit-cost ratio of UD measures over 40 years by passengers per year........................ 26
Figure 1.3. Framework for quantifying the benefits of community transport .................................... 29
Figure 1.4. Characterization of the population of Ile-de-France regarding accessibility.................... 32
Figure 2.1. Framework for measuring the benefits of accessibility .................................................... 47
Figure 2.2. Triggering a virtuous circle of self-sustaining accessibility ............................................. 53
Figure 3.1. Types of difficulties mentioned by survey respondents ................................................... 61
Figure 3.2. Proportion of respondents with different difficulties who use a mobility aid .................. 63
Figure 3.3. Intersection (junction) detailing road crossing locations before (B; above) and after(A) improvement works ................................................................................................. 64
Figure 4.4. Accessible environments are comfortable for all ............................................................. 77
Figure 4.5. Section of the elderly population in the EU25 2005 and 2050 in % ................................ 78
Figure 4.6. Vicious circle of immobility ............................................................................................. 79
Figure 4.7. Key pillars of an accessible holiday experience ............................................................... 88
Figure 4.8. Complexity of public transport ......................................................................................... 91
Figure 5.1. Are you aware of any changes made to this station in the last few years to make it easier
to use the station? ............................................................................................................ 104
Figure 5.2. How easy did you find it to get from or to the station entrance to the platforms? ......... 104
Figure 5.3. Overall rating of station accessibility ............................................................................. 105
Figure 5.4. Have any of these improvements affected your use of this station?............................... 106
Figure 5.5. Do you think these improvements, if any have encouraged other people with limited
mobility or a disability to use this station more? ............................................................ 106
Figure 5.6. Facilities to help people with difficulties walking .......................................................... 107
Figure 5.7. Facilities to help people with difficulties seeing ............................................................ 107
Figure 5.8. Facilities to help people with hearing impairments ........................................................ 108
Figure 5.9. Facilities to help people with difficulties carrying bulky luggage or equipment ........... 108
Figure 5.10. When considering which station to use, would you travel further in order to start or end
your journey at a station that is easy to use for people with disabilities?..................... 109
TablesTable 1.1. Legislative limits on undue financial burden .................................................................... 16
Table 1.2. Valuation of improved information provision at public transport stops ........................... 26
Table 1.3. Valuation of improved accessibility of public transport vehicles ..................................... 27
Table 1.4. Contributions to the economy dependent on travel by older people in 2030.................... 28
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Table 1.5. Mean RRI of different users going through airport terminals (unit milliseconds) ........... 31
Table 2.1. Legislative limits on undue financial burden .................................................................... 41
Table 2.2. Framework for measuring the benefits of accessibility: Quantification, monetization,and indexation ................................................................................................................... 48
Table 3.1. Pedestrian traffic before and after infrastructure upgrade ................................................ 65
Table 3.2. Preliminary estimates of benefits from Five Cross Roads investment ............................. 69
Table 4.3. Quality features of an age-friendly transport system ......................................................... 80
Table 4.4. Summary of recommended valuations. NOKs per ride. .................................................... 83
Table 4.5. Average valuations, NOKs per visitor ............................................................................... 84
Table 4.6. Economic benefits of accessible tourism in Europe. ......................................................... 87
Table 4.7. Importance of the elements of the touristic service chain for people with disabilities. ..... 89
Table 4.8. Ranking of impairments during travelling ......................................................................... 90
Table 5.1. Study stations ..................................................................................................................... 99
Table 5.2. Lift usage counts .............................................................................................................. 109
Table 5.3. Potential economic benefits from station accessibility improvements ............................ 110

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – 9

Executive summary
What we did
Factors such as age, disability, and to a different extent travelling with young children or with heavy
luggage, are a barrier to people’s mobility and, in turn, their ability to access jobs, services, and otheractivities. Therefore a key objective of transport policy, planning and regulation should be to guarantee
and enhance the accessibility of transport systems to all passengers, including those who are mobilityimpaired and encumbered. However, the lack of a common framework to value the economic benefits ofaccessibility still constitutes a barrier to investment and regulatory decisions in this field. Therefore it isnecessary to improve understanding of how accessibility benefits should be defined, quantified andincorporated in a consistent valuation framework. In March 2016, the International Transport Forum
convened a roundtable discussion at the OECD headquarters in Paris. Participants from national andlocal administrations, research and academia, specialist consultants, as well as longstanding advocates ofaccessibility for all, brought their expertise and ideas to the roundtable.

What we foundThe economic benefits of improved accessibility are often overlooked and almost always not
explicitly valued in traditional transport appraisal and evaluation practices. While costs are often known,
benefits are not clearly defined, quantified and documented. The lack of an economic appraisal
framework makes prioritisation of accessibility improvements difficult and ad-hoc, and the cost ofinaction often goes unaccounted. Decision-makers might also struggle to recognise that investment inaccessible transport is beneficial to a large section of the population, and not just to those that aremobility-impaired at the time when investment decisions are made.
The rare examples of economic valuations undertaken to date demonstrate that the magnitude ofpotential benefits from improved accessibility is often large enough to offset the costs. This is the caseacross a variety of techniques used, ranging from conventional welfare benefits to the inclusion of crosssector impacts (e.g. reduced health and social care costs) and broader economic impacts (e.g. increased
participation to economic activities).
Nonetheless, both practical and methodological difficulties need to be addressed before a consistentframework for the appraisal of accessibility benefits can be developed and accepted widely. These
include: understanding who benefits from accessibility improvements, and in which ways; the extent towhich conventional appraisal methodologies are fit for purpose in this area, and; how emerging researchfrom sectors other than transport can be integrated to ensure that cross-sector impacts are recognised.

What we recommend
Ex-post case studies of accessibility improvements can provide evidence on impacts
The current evidence base on the valuation of accessibility benefits needs to be widened by carryingout more analyses of impacts in places where accessibility has been improved. In order to do so, somekey elements are: data availability (to a minimum on actual and unmet travel demand, and journey times,
before and after the implementation of the accessibility measure); the ability to identify the discrete
effects of accessible transport as opposed to other interventions which may be confounding factors, and;a clear identification of beneficiaries.
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A large, ex-ante assessment of proposed measures to improve accessibility can shed light on thepractical application of different methodologies
In a similar fashion to the work carried out on the benefits of “Tourism for all” by the European
Commission in 2012, an international team of experts could be gathered with the goal of exploring
different benefit estimation techniques and providing reference values for future work. Furthermore, thiswork could feed into the compilation of a ‘manual case study’ for benefits estimation. The accessibility
intervention assessed could relate either to regulatory or investment measures. The techniques employedshould reflect the diversity of approaches available, starting with a narrower focus (standard Cost Benefit
Analysis [CBA]/ Economic Impact Assessment [EIA]) and progressively widening this scope to include
disaggregated impacts, wider impacts and new methodological approaches
Accessibility research should be explicitly integrated with health and wellbeing research
Accessible transport contributes to broader objectives to do with health and wellbeing, howeverthese benefits sit largely outside of those traditionally accounted for in transport project appraisal. The
cross-sector links are broad, ranging from emerging evidence that links health benefits to active transportmodes, and the importance of having access to healthcare and social support facilities. Examples ofpotential integration include the assessment of Quality Adjusted Life-Year (QALY) impacts from
improved accessibility to public transport. Greater collaborative research efforts across sectors canstrengthen the case for investment in accessibility.

Policy implications
Progress in this field relies on policy makers and regulators appropriately supporting research efforts
to consolidate knowledge and provide case studies for different accessibility measures. This will involvenot just providing the research funding needed, but also being open to incorporating findings in national
appraisal frameworks and to recognising the cross-sector nature of these types of transport interventions.
The inclusion of accessibility considerations in a consistent appraisal framework will support efforts bypolicy-makers as well as transport providers in enhancing accessibility for all.

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1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS – 11

Chapter 1
Summary and conclusions

Lorenzo CasulloInternational Transport Forum, Paris, FranceThis chapter covers the key issues around the identification and estimation of economic benefits ofimproved accessibility to transport systems. Despite the increased codification of accessibility as aright in national and international laws, the lack of a common framework to value the importance ofaccessibility to a large proportion of people can act as a break on investment and regulatory
decisions that promote better accessibility. Progress in this field can be promoted both by applying
conventional transport analysis techniques to the estimation of accessibility benefits, and bystrengthening cross-sector research efforts that capture the wide-ranging impacts of better
accessibility.

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12 – 1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Introduction
Background
Factors such as age, disability and sometimes travelling with young children or heavy luggage, havea detrimental effect on the ability of people to access public transport systems. Inaccessible transport is abarrier to mobility and its associated benefits. When a trip is foregone because of the limitations inaccessing a bus, a station, or an airplane, the consequence is potentially the loss of access to services,
jobs, or social interactions.
Global instruments and national laws that recognise the importance of accessible transport have been
introduced over the past two decades. Notably at the international level, the United Nations Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) signed by more than 150 countries and adopted by the
U.N. General Assembly in December 2006, addresses the issue of affordable and accessible mobility fordisabled persons. Some of the national laws include the ‘Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990’ in the
United States, and the ‘Loi n° 2005-102 pour l'égalité des droits et des chances, la participation et lacitoyenneté des personnes handicapées’ in France.
The European Union has also been active in this field with a range of Directives and Regulations
aimed at achieving common access standards for vehicles (buses and trains) and at embedding theconcept of passenger rights (across all modes).
In many ITF/OECD countries, legislators and governments have explicitly enshrined accessibility as
a right and a legal requirement and have thus made it a key objective of transport policy; but progress inthis field is slow and the implementation of accessibility-enhancing measures is constrained by a numberof barriers. These include competing demands for investment and an unclear understanding of theeconomic benefits of improved accessibility. While costs are often known, benefits are not clearly
defined, quantified and documented. The lack of an economic appraisal framework makes prioritisationof accessibility improvements difficult and ad-hoc.
The Roundtable on the economic benefits of improved accessibility to transport systems wasorganised to better identify, measure and quantify the benefits of accessible transport with all of theirramifications. By improving understanding of these benefits, better investment decisions can be made inthis area of transport policy. The inclusion of accessibility considerations in a consistent appraisal
framework can help policy-makers and transport providers improve outcomes by highlighting both thepositive effects of making improvements and the costs of inaction.
Following a discussion of the rationale for advancing research in this area, the main objectives ofthis report are the following:•

To identify the main types of benefits arising from improving accessibility, and their respective
beneficiaries;•

To set out approaches to measuring and valuing these benefits;•

To provide a framework for properly incorporating these benefits into decision-making; and•To identify areas where further research is recommended, given the limited evidence available
to date.

Scope
At the outset, it is necessary to clarify a number of concepts: accessibility, transport systems, andeconomic benefits.

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1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS – 13First, the focus is on improving accessibility as a way to cater for a proportion of transport users(actual and potential) whose access is impaired by physical and intellectual factors – sometimes termed‘passengers with special needs’ or ‘passengers with reduced mobility’. A useful working definition isprovided by European Union Directive 85/2001/EC (Article 2.21) on technical requirements of bus andcoach vehicles:“ ‘Passenger with reduced mobility’ means all people who have difficulty when using
public transport, such as disabled people (including people with sensory and intellectual
impairments, and wheelchair users), people with limb impairments, people of small stature,people with heavy luggage, elderly people, pregnant women, people with shopping trolleys,
and people with children (including children seated in pushchairs) ”
A similar definition is provided by European Union Regulation EC 1107/2006 (Article 2) on air
passenger rights:“‘Disabled person’ or ‘person with reduced mobility’ means any person whose mobility
when using transport is reduced due to any physical disability (sensory or locomotor,
permanent or temporary), intellectual disability or impairment, or any other cause of disability,
or age, and whose situation needs appropriate attention and the adaptation to his or her
particular needs of the service made available to all passengers”
Both definitions relate to the notion of reduced mobility and to impairments that make specificaccess measures necessary.
At the same time as those officially defined as people with reduced mobility, a broader range of
people benefit from improvements to accessibility, including people travelling with small children orwith heavy or voluminous items of luggage and pregnant women and older people with reduced (rather
than severely impaired) mobility. We define these people as encumbered passengers, for whom
accessibility improvements also yield significant benefits.
The term ‘improved accessibility’ refers to interventions of two types: either an improvement that
results in greater access to transport vehicles, or; an improvement that improves access to destinations,increases participation and generates new trips. Examples are given throughout the Report, and range
from introducing low-floor accessible buses, building accessible rail stations, and improving roadcrossings for pedestrians.
During the course of the Roundtable, we incorporated within ‘accessibility improvements’ theconcept of Universal Design for transport systems, as defined among other authorities by the NorwegianRoad Authority (Odeck et al. 2010) among other authorities:“‘Universal Design’ refers to the design of infrastructure, transportation systems or theirsurroundings to accommodate the widest range of potential users regardless of their impairments or
special needs”
This calls for the main design or intervention of a vehicle, building, etc. to accommodate the widest
range of potential users. From a UD perspective, a holistic approach to accessibility shall be prioritised
rather than ad-hoc retrofitting of existing structures.
The definitions of ‘economic benefits’ adopted in our report follow those used in standard
methodologies and frameworks for assessing transport infrastructure investment and changes in policy.
In many ITF/OECD countries it is common practice to value the direct welfare benefits for transport

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14 – 1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

users resulting from marginal improvements such as time savings or additional journeys, together withwider socio-economic impacts, and include them within appraisal frameworks, through:•Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), which assesses the extent to which, over the long-term, a given
investment generates social and economic benefits that exceed its costs of construction andoperation, and;•Economic Impact Assessment (EIA), which analyses the macroeconomic impacts of a specificproject or regulation and express benefits in terms of GDP, GVA and jobs based on the analysis
of demand ramifications throughout the economy.

Assessing the benefits of improved accessibility can take place within existing frameworks, andevidence from different studies was shared at the Roundtable. Other, new methodologies can be viewed
along a spectrum that ranges from traditional methods for standard CBA to capability approaches (which
are removed from utilitarian welfare analysis). In between these extremes, we find techniques
specifically developed to assess the impacts of investment in this area, and others that put forward
modifications to the traditional CBA framework.
Lastly, while a wide definition of ‘transport systems’ can be adopted to identify transport
investments which can promote accessibility, discussions in the Roundtable focused on walking, urban
public transport, rail and air transport rather than on private vehicle transport by road (bicycles, cars andtaxis), and this chapter reflects this.
Structure
This chapter is organised into four main sections in addition to this Introduction.
The first section entitled “The rationale for assessing the benefits of accessibility” spells out theimportance of an evidence-based assessment of accessibility measures even where rights-based
legislation exists, and despite the challenges surrounding any attempts to quantify the benefits ofimproved accessibility.
The second section on the “Identification of beneficiaries and benefits” discusses whose benefits
should be taken into account, and provides an approach to classifying the categories of benefits ofimproved accessibility, starting from the existing benefit classification systems used.
The third section on “Measurement and valuation of benefits” brings together a description of thedifferent techniques used so far to value benefits in this area. It also provides an overview of the limited
empirical evidence existing to date. Starting from standard CBA and EIA, this section also presents a
number of new methodological approaches to collect and process information around the impacts ofaccessibility measures.
The fourth section provides insights for policy makers and identifies areas where further research
could be developed.

The rationale for assessing the benefits of accessibility
A universal right
Global dialogue on accessibility issues under the aegis of the United Nations has led to a major shift
in the treatment of accessibility. The formulation of a structured policy framework now comprises theWorld Programme of Action concerning people with disabilities; the United Nations Standard Rules on
the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities; and the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). These global instruments define accessibility both as a human rights
issue and a development concern, and as such accessibility has been included in the post-2015

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1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS – 15

Sustainable Development Goals not “only a means and a goal of inclusive development but also anenabler of an improved, participative economic and social environment for all members of society” (UNDESA 2015).
The vast majority of the signatories to the Convention have transferred its provisions into nationallaws. Specifically, Article 20 of the CRPD stipulates that “States Parties shall take effective measures toensure personal mobility with the greatest possible independence for persons with disabilities, includingby:•Facilitating the personal mobility of persons with disabilities in the manner and at the time of
their choice, and at affordable cost;•

Facilitating access by persons with disabilities to quality mobility aids, devices, assistive
technologies and forms of life assistance and intermediaries, including by making themavailable at affordable cost;•

Providing training in mobility skills to persons with disabilities and to specialist staff working
with persons with disabilities;•

Encouraging entities that produce mobility aids, devices and assistive technologies to take into
account all aspects of mobility for persons with disabilities”.

A number of reforms in the European Union (EU) aim to make transport more accessible for people
with disabilities, as documented by a recent EU-FRA Report. The German Passenger Transport Act,
which entered into force on 1 January 2013, obliges city councils to ensure barrier-free local public
transport by January 2022; amendments to the Spanish Act on the ‘Regulation of ground transportation’require all vehicles used for passenger transport to meet basic accessibility requirements, with penalties
for those who do not comply. The Dutch Regulation on the accessibility of public transport required atleast 46% of buses to be accessible for people with disabilities by January 2016. The French Law
n°2005-12 mentioned above already introduced the requirement for all public transport services (except
metros) to be accessible for disabled and mobility-impaired passengers by 2015. The UK Disability
Discrimination Act of 1995 set technical access standards for vehicle construction and end dates bywhich all vehicles in service must be accessible.
In light of the growing rights-based legal codification of accessibility both at the global and national
level, is it at all necessary to concern ourselves with the identification and quantification of economic
benefits from improved accessibility? We argue that defining the benefits of accessibility is stillnecessary, given the limitations of rights-based approaches, and the presence of trade-offs and budget
constraints. We address this in the sections below. Persevering with current efforts to map the benefits ofdifferent accessibility measures more accurately will also be useful in making choices between
alternative solutions to make transport more inclusive.
The limitations of rights-based approaches
In Chapter 2, we discuss some of the limitations of an approach that relies on rights-based
guarantees only. The authors point out: “despite the fact that they establish accessibility as a human right,
the mandates (i) universally acknowledge costs and (ii) often incorporate cost-benefit balancing as
legitimate considerations in their implementation”. Table 1.1 summarises the provisions that refer to costconsiderations in seven of the legislative instruments analysed by the authors. Hence, there is a risk ofover-reliance on rules, with a failure to account for benefits that are high enough to offset the costs.

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16 – 1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Table 1.1. Legislative limits on undue financial burdenCountry /Governingbody
UnitedNations
Australia
CanadaNew ZealandLaws/Rule regarding accessand prohibiting
discrimination on basis of
disability
Convention on The Rights of
Persons with Disabilities(CRPD)The Australian Disability
Discrimination Act 1992
Covered by the Canadian
Charter of Rights, Freedoms
and the Canada Transportation
Act
Human Rights Act 1993
(amended Human Rights
Amendment Act 2001)

European
Union

European Accessibility Act(proposed 2015)

UnitedKingdom

Disability Discrimination Act
1995; The Equality Act 2010

United States

Americans with Disabilities Act,
1990

Limits on accommodation requirements
Accommodation required as long as it does “not impos[e] adisproportionate or undue burden, . . .” [Convention on The Rights of
Persons With Disabilities, Article 2, 2006]
Accommodation required unless would impose an “unjustifiablehardship” [Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Cth, section 31].
Service providers must make provision for accessible transport up thepoint of ‘undue hardship’ [Canada Transportation Act and Council of
Canadians with Disabilities v. Via Rail Canada Inc., 2007]
Accommodation required, including for access to “places, vehicles, andfacilities,” except “when it would not be reasonable to require theprovision of such special services or facilities” (section 43)
Accessibility requirements referred to in Article 3 apply to the extent thatthey do not impose a disproportionate burden on the economic
operators concerned.” [Directive Of The European Parliament and of
The Council , Article 12]
Prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities, requiring“reasonable adjustments” which includes consideration of “financial andother costs which would be incurred” (1995)
Entities must to make ‘reasonable accommodation’ “unless suchcovered entity can demonstrate that the accommodation would impose
an undue hardship . . . “or “would result in an undue burden, i.e.,significant difficulty or expense.” [Americans With Disabilities Act Of
1990, Sec. 12111 and section 36.104]

A risk to the above is the potential lack of preparedness by public administrations and operators tostand the cost-benefit test, when challenged in court. Challenges can be made by those same entities thatare required to make reasonable adjustments for accessible transport, for instance. The review of judicial
proceedings in Chapter 2 highlights that the kind of benefits considered relevant and measurable inrelation to accessibility ranges from very narrow to fairly broad. As such, the authors conclude that in
the absence of a shared approach, the interpretation of legal requirements can lead both to inequality ofopportunities across jurisdictions and to the failure of courts to impose accessibility requirements to thesame extent as for other provisions (for which a more consistent approach to benefit valuation exists) are.
Finally, if investment in accessibility is viewed as a way to comply with disability-related legislation
only, the notion that the impacts of improved accessibility and Universal Design (UD) can be positive fora wider section of the population than just the disabled passengers may be overlooked. Beyond legal
protection and non-discrimination, a broader group of passengers such as encumbered people can benefit
from improved accessibility and providing for non-negotiable accessibility requirements only will not be
conducive to maximising all potential benefits.
The view that accessibility only provides small benefits for a minority may in fact prevail in somejurisdictions: “conventional thinking is that Universal Design is for the few (e.g. disabled passengers)and, given that they are few in numbers, UD projects will generally be unprofitable from asocioeconomic point of view” (Odeck et al. 2010). Only a thorough assessment of benefits can provide
the evidence needed to debunk this conventional thinking.

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1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS – 17

Trade-offs and budget constraints
The overreliance on a rights-based approach may also lead to significant delays in implementing
existing rules in the presence of budget constraints, especially when the benefits to key decision makers(notably the Treasury and its local equivalents in devolved jurisdictions) are not clearly articulated. An
example of how this risk may materialise comes from France, where the implementation of thelegislative requirements has been delayed beyond 2015 due to unplanned budget constraints. The new
deadline for implementing accessibility measures in the Ile-de-France region is now before 2021 insteadof 2015. Although there has been no analysis of the cost of the delay in implementation of accessibility,
the benefits foregone are likely to be high.
Moreover, at times when decision-makers have to trade off potential investment options, thosemeasures for which there are clear and more readily available economic benefits may be prioritised overaccessibility measures. Investment in road safety, for which benefit valuation techniques are common
practice in a number of national appraisal frameworks, is an example. In that case, decision makers
would be familiar with the ‘currency’ in which safety benefits are expressed, such as the value of astatistical life. Such a currency for accessibility does not yet exist.
Evidence-based assessments to support decision-making
Better and more informed decisions in the field of accessibility require stronger evidence to support
the assessment of potential benefits. Typically, authorities will need to decide whether to implement
accessibility measures as a package, and if so which measures should be included in the package. This is
the case, for instance, of measures aiming to improve accessibility for blind people and passengers using
wheelchairs at the same time. In the absence of an established set of techniques to value those
improvements, “decision-making about investment in accessibility (…) relies on ‘local knowledge’,using discretionary transport funds and [only implements] ‘add-ons’ to other projects” (Chapter 3). Thus
in a rights-based framework, the key question may not be whether to invest in accessible transport, butrather to what extent. Faced with complex decisions, evidence around the economic impacts of specificmeasures can support more informed investment choices.

Identification of beneficiaries and benefits
This section provides a more descriptive account of the beneficiaries of improved accessibility, andthe type of benefits that are likely to emerge. We propose an overall framework for classifying benefits
and beneficiaries, without suggesting that all of the beneficiaries and benefits described should be
included in every analysis of accessibility, but rather aiming to provide a complete list of potential
impacts for different types of users (both mobility impaired, and other encumbered passengers) and for
non-users (such as potential users).
In considering the nature of beneficiaries and their measurement, a balance must be struck between
the most comprehensive accounting for ‘need’ in transport, and methods that are practically applicable inlocal decision-making contexts. If investment in accessibility improvements is currently discretionary
and ad-hoc, there may be reluctance among practitioners to move to an appraisal framework that adds
significant cost to the process.
Beneficiaries
Given that accessibility improvements arguably benefit all users of transport to varying degrees,
there is necessarily a difference between who the identified beneficiaries are, and which particular
beneficiaries are accounted for in economic appraisal. This difference is important if a practicallyapplicable analysis framework is to be readily adopted by transport practitioners, who rely on
measurement of the impacts of their investment decisions.
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On the one hand, a narrow focus on mobility-impaired passengers at the time of analysis may beeasier to implement and less prone to the uncertainties inherently linked to forecasting and behavioural
responses. On the other hand, a wider definition captures the benefits that improved accessibility brings
to all encumbered passengers, and potentially to all travellers – both current and future. The following
paragraphs address this issue.
Mobility-impaired passengers only
A narrow focus on the benefits that accrue to mobility-impaired passengers requires theidentification of passengers with disabilities through a standardised approach, and the estimation of
benefits specifically accruing to those users.
Such an approach is adopted in a case study of upgrades to pedestrian infrastructure in Hamilton,
New Zealand (Chapter 3). The upgrades included new raised zebra crossings to provide safe andaccessible crossing points where previously the intersection was not universally accessible. The casestudy involves pedestrian counts before and after the upgrade. In order to identify the potential
beneficiaries, the focus of the counts is on people using mobility aids such as walking sticks.
Some of the advantages of using mobility aids are:•they are used by a significant of the encumbered passengers group;•

they provide a visibly identifiable proxy of need that corresponds directly with the way thatinvestment decisions are already made in transport (e.g. based on traffic counts), and;•

their use is shown to be highly correlated with other disabilities in New Zealand’s official
population surveys.

The case study finds that improved accessibility results in more people using formal road crossings,
and there is a statistically significant increase in the use of formal road crossings by people using
mobility aids. To assess the net economic benefit of the intersection upgrade, the authors estimate thevalue of additional trips undertaken after the investment relative to the number prior to the investment.
Following Hufschmidt et al. (1983) the benefits are estimated based on costs associated with alternative
mechanisms for achieving similar outcomes. In this case, a minimum taxi fare is the alternative, giventhat mobility-impaired users would not be able to access local public transport easily.
A further advantage of focusing on tangible proxies such as mobility aids to identify thebeneficiaries is the correspondence between survey observation and local/national surveys that use thesame type of indicators, improving the potential for ex-ante benefits estimation. For example in New
Zealand, the use of mobility aids is recorded as part of the National Disability Survey and it varies
between 1% and 4% of any catchment population.
The authors highlight a downside of this approach though: “While the benefits of universal design
are evident for all people, the proxy measure of people who use mobility aids is an indicator ofaccessibility and not a means of capturing all potential beneficiaries of best-practice transport
infrastructure and processes” (Chapter 3). Therefore, any proxy measure (such as mobility aid use) ought
to include an estimate of the additional benefit to those not specifically counted by the indicator
population, such as those affected by intellectual disabilities.
Mobility-impaired and other encumbered passengers
The wider effects of accessibility and Universal Design become more evident with the inclusion of agreater range of passengers in the assessment of benefits. ‘Needs’ do not just arise from the presence of a
specific disability and accessibility improvements can cater for the needs of a wider group of users. Someintermediate categories of users exist between the very narrow category of disabled passengers and the

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largest category of population as a whole. Two main categories can be defined as encumbered passengers
and older passengers, both part of a broader group than mobility impaired only.
A working definition of both encumbered and older passenger is used in Chapter 5 reporting on thefindings of the Access for All research carried out for the Department for Transport (DfT) in the United
Kingdom, in relation to step-free infrastructure investment at rail stations. For the purpose of interviews
and counts, passengers are categorised into the following groups:•

Wheelchair users•

Hearing impaired•

Sight impaired•

Mobility impaired (users with walking aid, frail older users, etc.)•

Encumbered (users with small children, heavy luggage or shopping, pushchairs and any otherhindrance), and•Unencumbered (all other passengers).

Whereas the first four categories make up 1% of all station users, encumbered passengers make up
another 5% – thus increasing the number of beneficiaries observed at railway stations considerably. The
surveys undertaken on site show that a large majority of passengers notice and benefit from theimprovements (e.g. using the new lifts), but the research only aims to calculate the benefits of thoseclassified as mobility-impaired and encumbered. The two direct user benefits included in the analysis area reduction in generalised travel costs and an increase in demand.
The Access for All research demonstrates that the inclusion of encumbered passengers’ benefits inaddition to those with mobility impairments is sufficient to generate benefits in excess of costs for mostof the railway stations surveyed. This provides a useful benchmark against which future studies can becompared. However the limitation of such an approach lies in the need to carry out on-site surveys andinterviews which can be both costly and include an element of subjectivity, for instance in theidentification of what type of ‘heavy luggage’ counts towards encumbrance and what constitutes a “frail
older user”.
Linking encumbrance and age may be a way to simplify the above methodology. Growing ageing
populations are a well-established trend in most high and middle-income countries. A parallel trend
related to ageing populations is that “more and more older people … want to travel and have the means
to do so”, but at the same time “there is a strong correlation between age and disability, or loss ofmobility” and “enabling older people to remain independent and self-sufficient for as long as possible iscrucial” (Frye, 2015).
The link between age and (loss of) mobility is echoed by recent projections from the European
Commission (2015), highlighting that “the number of citizens with disabilities and/or functional
limitations will increase significantly with the ageing of the EU's population […and that…] it is expectedthat in 2020 approximately 120 million persons in the EU will have multiple and/or minor disabilities”.
In Germany, statistics show that three-quarters of those classified as severely disabled are 55+ years old.
Given the high degree of correlation between age and mobility impairments, older passengers’
benefits could be accounted for separately, and partly as a proxy for encumbered travellers. Whenconsidering both current and future passengers, demographic considerations may be included as part of
the assessment. Rising life expectancy would lead to an increase in the relative size of beneficiaries inmost countries/regions without a clear corresponding growth in the demand for transport services,
depending on the incidence of what is defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as ‘healthy
ageing’.1 For instance, the percentage of potential public transport users is decreasing among older
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people who are becoming more car reliant and want to continue driving (Haustein and Siren, 2015). This
makes it even more important for public transport providers to offer attractive and accessible services forolder people, when they want to keep them as passengers.
An advantage of focusing on age as a proxy for encumbered passengers is that data is often readily
available at different geographical levels to estimate the size of those affected by accessibility
improvements, since most local and regional surveys provide a segmentation of the resident population
by age. However, a main disadvantage is the narrow focus of the assessment, and an unintended policy
outcome of directing accessibility investment towards areas with higher densities of older people could
be the creation of old people’s enclaves, which would reinforce patterns of isolation and exclusion.
All passengers
Investment that enhances the accessibility of the transport system can be beneficial not just formobility-impaired and encumbered passengers, but for all passengers, because comfort and system
quality, safety, reliability and information provision will generally improve travel for all. In extending
the scope of benefit valuations to all users of transport systems, we highlight the relevance of adopting
the UD approach as defined above. Since UD refers to measures that make public transport accessible toas many passengers as possible, a direct consequence of this approach is the need to value the benefits ofinvestment to all passengers who are affected.
The inclusion of all passengers’ valuations can affect the magnitude and applicability of thoseestimates. Valuations that demonstrate benefits for a large section of society can provide greater policy
support for accessibility measures, however the effect on the size of the benefits is not univocal, as
discussed in the section on disbenefits below. Decisions about widening the net of beneficiaries includedin the analysis need to take the policy goals of the measures assessed closely into account.
Current passengers, future passengers and non-passengers
Valuations of benefits in transport traditionally comprise benefits to both current and future users,
and there is no apparent reason why this should not be the case for accessibility benefits – arguably, thecase is even stronger in light of demographic changes. However some of the difficulties encountered in
the valuation of other measures can be exacerbated in the context of accessibility and require special
attention.
First, demand forecasting is traditionally uncertain, and forecasting the number of encumbered users
can encounter these specific difficulties:•

Mobility-impaired people may develop habits of seclusion as a result of years of perceived
low accessibility of the external environment, hence the share of latent demand may behigher than across the entire population;•

The need for several other features of the built environment to be accessible (“accessible
mobility chain”), including access to and from buildings, shops, schools, etc. for a person todecide to make use of public transport systems, and;•Unless information dissemination strategies are well defined and tailored to disabilities suchas visual and cognitive impairment, the impact of the measures will be dependent on theextent to which their introduction is known.

In addition, the inclusion of new passengers in the analysis raises a number of questions about thevalue of those additional trips induced by the accessibility improvement. The next section addresses
these questions.

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Dedicated surveys to test for evidence of behavioural change can contribute to reducing uncertainty.
When carrying out these surveys, a key issue is the sample size. If the surveys focus disproportionately
on disabled and encumbered passengers, the results of the studies may not be reliable unless they aresample weighted to reflect the composition of passenger demand, which is turn is difficult to predict. For
instance, should the weights be based on actual demand (which may be suppressed because of limitedaccessibility, loss of confidence, etc.) or based on potential demand (assuming access for all, andinformation about it, is provided)? In light of these issues, surveys are useful but need to be carefully
designed to ensure that the sample is as representative as possible of people’s current and future mobility
needs.
Benefit types
User benefits
Improvements in accessibility result in similar user benefits to other transport interventions, forexample, reductions in travel times, greater service quality and convenience, improved safety and greater
trip-making. There may be other user benefit categories relevant to accessible transport improvements.
These include the reduction in stigmatic harm associated with inaccessible transport.
Travel time savings benefit all passengers and can result from improvements such as:•

Faster access/egress time to/from buses, train stations, airports, etc. thanks to the removal of
barriers and obstacles to mobility, as well as better signage and information provision.

•

The introduction of accessible ticket machines which reduce the time spent by travellers withdisabilities purchasing and using tickets as well as the cost penalty of many on-line
transactions.

A recent ITF Report (ITF, 2014) summarises evidence around additional benefits to travel timesavings. These relate to convenience, which is linked to ‘absence of effort’ in using transport services
that are fit for purpose. Convenience is important to enhance the attractiveness of transport and toprovide for mobility needs more generally; but some key elements (e.g. not being able to travel at thedesired time, the absence of good information) may disproportionately affect encumbered passengers. As
the practice of benefit evaluation is well established in relation to both travel time savings andconvenience, these benefits can be easily incorporated in the evaluation of accessibility-related
interventions.
In Chapter 2, authors discuss other categories of user benefits, which specifically pertain to mobilityimpaired passengers, in the context of recent changes in the practice of CBA in the US. In particular, in2011 the Federal Government issued Executive Order 13,563 on CBA authorising government agencies
to consider human dignity (stigmatic harm, humiliation, embarrassment) as part of regulatory impact
assessment (RIA). The inclusion of dignity considerations underlines the importance of accessible
journeys as a way to improve social inclusion as well as reducing the stigma attached to disability or oldage. These user benefits can be considered alongside those traditionally assessed in transport appraisal.
Non-user benefits
Non-user benefits encompass a larger set of indirect economic benefits from transport investment,such as decongestion and uplift in property values (Levin, 1960). In this context, non-user benefits referto benefits accruing to “those who do not change their behaviour as a result of the scheme, but who are
affected in some way as additional people using [accessible transport] have ‘second-order impacts’ on
the transport network” (Chapter 5). These benefits will be particularly important to consider if theaccessibility improvement leads to modal shift from private, motorised transport by road towards public
transport modes.
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Non-user benefits also include other impacts that will not manifest themselves in transport markets,
such as the concepts of option value and existence value. Option value is associated with individuals’
attitude to uncertainty, and captures the willingness of individuals to pay for the option of using
accessible transport, even if they do not do so at present. People may project themselves in the future andrealise that factors such as injury and old age can change their future transport needs. Existence value
relates to individuals’ willingness to pay for accessibility improvements; even if they do not plan to use
accessible transport, they derive value from the guarantee of equal protection and non-discrimination
through the provision of accessible facilities (Chapter 2). Altruism values may also be present, as long as
people consider the wellbeing of others important.
Operators benefits
Transport providers are likely to benefit from improved accessibility through different mechanisms.
First, increased passenger numbers because of better accessibility can lead to increased revenues fortransport operators such as rail companies, bus companies and airlines. However, this will not necessarilybe the case in the event that a large proportion of new passengers receive concessionary travel. In anumber of countries such as Germany and the UK, older and disabled passengers benefit from discounts
and free travel by public transport and rail. In this case, greater passenger numbers do not directlytranslate into higher revenues2.
Secondly, transport operators experience cost reductions if encumbered passengers can accesstransport more independently instead of relying on assistance by dedicated personnel. For example, lowfloor buses save time boarding and alighting of all passengers by shortening stop dwell times (Fearnley
et al., 2011; Odeck et al., 2009). For these benefits to be fully realised, policy-makers need to ensure thatthe interface between a duty of assistance and accessibility improvements is addressed; examples of thelack of coordination include the requirement to always be assisted when using lifts at rail stations, evenwhen these provide barrier-free access to trains. Without tackling these potential coordination issues,
some benefits would not materialise (e.g. there would be no reduction in stigmatic harm for the assisted
person) and operating costs would not decrease. If transport operators are in public ownership, then some
operators’ benefits would also be public sector benefits, discussed next.
Public sector benefits
In addition to user, non-user benefits and benefits to transport operators, the public sector may also
benefit indirectly from improvements in accessibility. In some ITF/OECD member countries such as the
Netherlands and the UK, it is customary to assess the extent to which transport links affect people’s
propensity to work. These impacts aim to capture the additional labour force participation resulting fromlower transport costs, by estimating the extent to which a share of passengers take up employment
opportunities following investment. As part of wider economic impacts (WEIs) methodology, the nextchange in public expenditures is then assessed as extra income tax minus social contributions (e.g.
unemployment benefits).
Enabling mobility-impaired passengers to enter the labour market will result in similar benefits. In
the case of accessible transport, it seems appropriate to disaggregate and add further dimensions to the
traditional labour market benefits, in order to articulate the variety of impacts that accessible transport
can have on people’s lives. Examples include the following: greater participation in social and economic
activities; the ability to access services (both for essential health and education purposes and for leisure)
more easily and more frequently (Chapter 3), and; greater inclusion, countering the risk of isolation
which can lead to adverse psychological problems (ECT Charity 2016; Green et al., 2014). Links canalso be drawn between accessible transport and health, building on the growing evidence that active
travel modes support healthier lifestyles (Choi et al., 2013; Flint et al., 2014).

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The next section reviews some of the techniques for translating these benefits into monetised values,
but acknowledging the potential for public sector savings is a useful starting point
Broader economic impacts
The practice of transport appraisal commonly recognises the presence of broader economic benefits(ITF, 2015). In the context of CBA, this includes wider economic impacts (WEIs) and the labour market
effects described above, as well as productivity and competition effects. These impacts may be includedin the appraisal of accessibility benefits, to the extent that the investment is large and affects economic
geography (ITF, 2011). However, the same caveats to the inclusion of WEIs apply in the case ofaccessibility improvements (ITF, 2015).
In the context of EIA, ‘socio-economic accounting’ at the macroeconomic level provides estimatesof the direct, indirect and induced effects of a given economic sector in terms of gross value added(GVA), gross domestic product (GDP) and jobs – the methodologies are described in more details in thenext section. These develop specific frameworks to account for additional private spending and/or
avoided costs (e.g. additional consumption because of more frequent travel to see friends and family).
Estimates of broader impacts show the size of the benefits in relation to other sectors of theeconomy. The main risk when considering broader impacts is double counting. Some of the benefits
mentioned here may already be captured under other benefit categories, and therefore including them
may lead to an overestimation of total benefits. As with WEIs, the inclusion of these benefits needs torely on robust approaches to avoid common pitfalls.
Capability values
The ‘capability approach’ developed by Amartya Sen offers a different perspective on the benefits ofimproved accessibility. Moving away from the utilitarian approaches to measure of societal well-being
typical of CBA, Sen elaborates the concept of capabilities. The concept suggests that policies are mostbeneficial when they provide the freedom to fulfil everyone’s capabilities and that the provision of someprimary goods is essential to this fulfilment. In Chapter 2 authors propose incorporating accessibility
benefits in order to recognise “the range of freedoms that newly accessible facilities open up for people
to pursue life chances, opportunities and ways of life”. Different measures of capability values are
discussed in the next section.
Disbenefits and trade-offs
Investment in accessibility improvements can also give rise to negative economic benefits. The
inclusion of disbenefits is useful in order to highlight some of the unintended effects of making transportsystems more accessible, as well as to improve the rigour of benefits estimates more generally.
For instance, the introduction of dedicated space for wheelchairs and pushchairs can somewhat
reduce the available capacity on public transport and may lead to greater crowding at peak times, or lessspace for luggage and bicycles – unless additional capacity is added. An unintended effect is the potential
nuisance of audio-information provision at public transport stops and street crossings. In some cases,
measures that improve accessibility for some passengers will result in disbenefits for others, as may be
the case with tactile pavements designed for blind travellers, which make it more difficult for wheelchairusers to access e.g. rail platforms.
These types of trade-offs generated by accessibility measures are common and, although thedisbenefits generated are not likely to be large and can often be motivated by good design, these should
be considered as adverse effects for completeness.
Lastly, investment in accessibility improvements may not be as effective if it is badly implemented.
Examples of bad implementation include providing new infrastructure while ignoring complementary
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soft measures such as communication and information provision. These measures are critical to ensure
awareness among potential users and beneficiaries of accessibility improvements.

Measurement and valuation of benefits
A clear identification of beneficiaries and benefit types is critical to any assessment of the benefits ofimproved accessibility, since it supports the development of a robust narrative and provides a solid basis
for subsequent analysis. For instance, analysts would benefit from selecting upfront the categories ofbenefits that will be measured quantitatively as opposed to those which will be discussed qualitatively. It
can also highlight the risks of potential overlaps and trade-offs.
This section reviews some of the methodologies and parameters that are available to measure andassess the benefits of improved accessibility discussed above. These are presented along a spectrum that
ranges from traditional methods for standards CBA, to new techniques that explore the capabilities
approach. In between these extremes, there are techniques that specifically address the gaps in this areaof transport appraisal, for instance by modifying existing CBA/EIA frameworks, as well as techniquesthat pertain to other sectors and from which transport practitioners can learn.
We also report on the (few) practical applications of these methodologies that are available. A key
finding is that, even when standard CBA and a narrow set of benefits are used, the net present value(NPV) of estimated benefits from accessibility improvements can outweigh the costs of achieving them.
Similarly, the EIA studies presented here show that the size of the potential impacts arising fromaccessible transport can be high, both in absolute terms and as a share of GDP.
Standard appraisal frameworks and valuation techniques (1) – CBA
As discussed in the Introduction, documenting and valuing the economic benefits resulting frommarginal transport improvements through CBA is customary in many ITF/OECD countries. Valuation
techniques are available to quantify user benefits, non-user benefits, and benefits accruing to operators,
the public sector and the broader economy, as summarised in Figure 1.1 below. This standard framework
can be adapted to provide a valuation of the economic benefits of accessibility, as discussed next; theinclusion of capability values (dotted line) deserves a special discussion at the end of this section.
Figure 1.1. Framework for measuring the economic benefits of improved accessibility

Accessibility improvement
Current and (forecast)future users

Whobenefits?

Non-users

User
benefits

Non-userbenefits

Operators
benefits

Cross-sector
benefits/savings

Broader economic
impacts

Capability
valuesWhich economic benefits?

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1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS – 25

Standard welfare analysis involves measuring the willingness to pay (WTP) for transport
improvements. At the simplest level, the Value of Time (VOT) translates time savings into monetary
values. As discussed by Wardman (2014), the overall attractiveness of a transport mode is being
represented in practice as being composed not just of time values, but also cost and other factors each
expressed in common monetary units using different weights for each component. These components
include crowding, the number of transfers, information provision and comfort – all factors thataccessibility measures tend to target. Dedicated surveys as well as previous studies can provide thevaluation of these attributes to complement VOT in benefit valuation analysis. The overall attractivenessof a means of travel can then be translated into time units, usually known as Generalised Time (GT).
The two studies discussed below apply standard welfare analysis to accessibility improvements.
First, the work by Steer Davies Gleave discussed above (Chapter 5) in the context of the UK Access for
All programme. In this study, the beneficiaries are all mobility-impaired or encumbered passengers, andthe approach used is to select a single VOT for all encumbered passengers from national guidance in the
UK (Web TAG). The VOT that more closely reflects the highest share of trip purpose (i.e. non-workVOT) is chosen. The demand to which benefits are applied is measured by the surveys undertaken before
and after the intervention, so that new users’ benefits are accounted for.
The appraisal gives a positive benefit cost ratio (BCR), but with substantial variation between the
different stations. Overall, the benefits exceed costs by 2.4:1 with one station having a very high BCR of
11.3:1 and three stations having BCR below 1. Sensitivity tests were undertaken, mostly ‘pessimistic’ innature. The overall programme BCR remained positive, the lowest value being 1.44 : 1. The benefits tounencumbered passengers were not included in the central case.
As discussed in the section on Operators benefits, some passengers receive heavily discounted, oreven free, travel on public transport. In this case, the focus can be on using equivalent time savings as themeasure of the benefit of accessibility improvements as in the UK study. Equivalent time savings can bethen converted to monetary values using standard VOTs.
In the second example, researchers in Norway carry out a valuation study and develop a CBA
framework for UD projects that features using Stated Preferences (SP) and Contingent Valuation (CV)techniques. Stated Preferences techniques are used to elicit monetary values for transport attributes. In an
SP study, a respondent is presented with two or more alternatives, described by the attributes of a trip,
including cost. A respondent's task is to choose the alternative that they most prefer, trading for example
the ease of accessing information and cost. In CV questions, respondents assign a monetary value to theimprovement of a single attribute or a package of attributes.
The studies by Fearnley are based on focus groups, on-board interviews with passengers and on-line
valuation surveys in three different Norwegian cities where the levels of transport accessibility are high.
Special care is taken to present attributes and their levels in a way that enables respondents to maketrade-offs as realistically as possible in the choice experiment, i.e. by extensive use of graphic
illustrations. SP questionnaires are prepared to elicit preferences on specific attributes such as low-floor
buses, and subsequently CV is used to elicit a maximum willingness-to-pay for UD improvement, bothindividually and bundled. The main results of the studies carried out in Norway are summarised inTable 1.2.
A significant finding of this work is the fact that UD projects provide benefits to all passengers, andnot only to those encumbered. All passengers regard UD measures as general quality improvement.
Therefore, all passengers value these improvements, i.e., they have a willingness to pay for them.
Research in the field of valuation can shed light on the values of other parameters than VOT evenwhen user preferences cannot be readily observed (e.g. in the case of accessibility attributes that are notsold on the market separately from a bundle of services bought through tickets).

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The results provide insights on the valuation of specific accessibility measures, showing for instancethat the highest valuation is for information sources at stops. This is consistent with focus groups and an
on board surveys. However, the results also raise important methodological issues. Taken at face value,
these results indicate which measures are preferred by most users, using techniques that may be viewed
as a form of democracy in an economic context. Nevertheless, the package effect is problematic – should
we compare preferences for a bundle against the valuation of each single attribute?
Table 1.2. Valuation of improved information provision at public transport stops
WTP per ride

NOK

USD

Map over local area

0.43

0.08

0.69

0.12

4.05

0.72

4.62

0.81

Speaker about changes indeparture
Screen with real-time
information
All three information
devices

Source: Adapted from Fearnley et al. (2009, 2011), exchange rates as at March 2016

The authors apply the estimated values to assess the benefits to existing users only. Despite theexclusion of induced users, the BCR for each of the UD features appraised is positive, as shown in
Figure 1.2 below. Taking into account standardised cost measures, the benefits exceed the costs for eachfeature as long as more than 2 000 passengers per year use the stop (4 000 to have a positive BCR for
shelters).
Figure 1.2. Benefit-cost ratio of UD measures over 40 years by passengers per year

Source: Adapted from Fearnley (2016)

It is worth emphasising that both studies from the UK and Norway demonstrate that the accessibility
features examined have a positive Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR). Even in the presence of conservativetechniques and lower-end estimates of the potential benefits, investment in accessibility delivers value
for money in these two cases, except for some smaller UK stations. We consider next possible
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modifications to the standard framework, introducing measures that could be seen as relaxing theassumptions used more conservative appraisal methods.
Potential modifications/additions to the CBA framework
Even within standard CBA frameworks, segmentation is sometimes applied to reflect VOT
differences depending on whether resource costs (e.g. for business trips) or pure WTP (e.g. for leisuretravellers) are considered. In the context of accessibility valuations, further segmentation takes place by
estimating specific WTP values for encumbered users and assigns these to the portion of demand
represented by encumbered passengers. Valuation studies using SP and CV techniques can provide
evidence to formulate specific WTP values, which can be assigned to encumbered users.
Fearnley et al. (2011) provide a practical application by reporting WTP for all passengers and forencumbered passengers separately – the values are presented in Table 1.3 below. The results obtained
show that encumbered passengers’ WTP is considerably higher in relation to low-floor vehicles than the
average values for all passengers. However, the main message is the fact that low floor buses benefit all.
Table 1.3. Valuation of improved accessibility of public transport vehicles
WTP per ride

NOK (allpassengers)

USD (allpassengers)

NOK (special needs
passengers1)

USD (special needs
passengers)

Low-floor vehicle

1.67

0.30

2.88

0.51

Low-floor vehicle andadjusted ground at stop

2.07

0.37

4.01

0.72

Note: 1. Defined as those with limited mobility, using a walking aid, pregnant, carrying heavy luggage, and small children
Source: Adapted from Fearnley et al. (2011), exchange rates as at March 2016

Whether the segmentation of demand to assign higher WTP (or VOT) to encumbered passengers is
possible, or indeed desirable, remains an open question. It is clear that encumbered passengers will value
some measures more highly. For instance, reducing the number of interchanges in a given journey isparticularly beneficial to those who find it difficult to board and exit transport vehicles; likewise, theprovision of information is especially important for passengers with hearing, visual and cognitive
impairments in order to facilitate their travel experience. However, any additional segmentation ofdemand makes benefit valuations more prone to complexity, and ultimately controversy.
In Chapter 5 the author carries out sensitivity tests on the central case by including the benefits to all
passengers (as opposed to a central case where only encumbered passengers’ benefits are accounted for)through a corresponding uplift in demand at the stations that receive accessibility investment. This way,
the BCR increases from 2.4:1 in the central case to 19:1 in the alternative scenario.
Lastly, even in the presence of a clearer articulation of, and quantification techniques for,accessibility benefits, it remains critical to select the beneficiaries consistently. The classic appraisal
framework tends to include the benefits of those whose travel is induced by the improvements and tovalue their benefits as half of the value of existing users (commonly known as the “rule of a half” – seee.g. Jones 1977). In the case of encumbered and particularly disabled passengers, the rule of a half can bequestioned on the basis that the trips induced by the improvement and made by new users are notmarginal. Rather, they are transformative to the extent that they provide access to a host of services andopportunities (including employment) that would have otherwise been unavailable in the absence ofaccessible transport.

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28 – 1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Against this background, a possible adjustment is not to apply the rule of a half in a blanket
approach to accessibility projects, similarly to the case of non-standard land-use change (see discussion
by ITS Leeds, 20033). Analysts could consider using values of 0.75 instead of 0.5, if justified by a strong
narrative. A separate issue from the valuation of induced demand is the estimation of new users by
forecasting behavioural changes, which is discussed below.
Standard appraisal frameworks and valuation techniques (2) – EIA
Moving away from CBA, other standard frameworks which measure economic impacts involvesome form of ‘socio-economic accounting’ at the macroeconomic level. Economic Impact Assessments(EIA) provide estimates of the direct, indirect and induced effects of a given economic sector in terms ofgross value added (GVA), gross domestic product (GDP) and jobs. The relative size of the economic
benefits calculated is not comparable to the welfare benefits estimated in CBA, but it informs policymakers about the amount of economic activity dependent upon a particular intervention.
In recent years, the European Commission has supported a number of studies in the field of Tourism
for All. As discussed in Chapter 4, the most recent 2012 review at the European level concluded thataccessible tourism (i.e. tourism activity by both disabled and p;der travellers) generated a gross annual
turnover of about EUR 352 billion, GVA of approximately EUR 150 billion and GDP impacts quantified
in the realm of EUR 164 billion. This translates into more than 4.2 million jobs. These direct impacts
almost double when indirect and induced effects are included. The study finds that if European
destinations were made fully accessible, demand for tourism services by mobility-impaired passengers
could increase by over 40%, although some displacement from other regions of the world will be
involved.
This study provides a good basis to perform similar analysis in the field of Transport for All. Since
accessible transport services “enable persons with special access needs, either permanent or temporary,
to enjoy a holiday with no particular barrier or problem” (GfK SE et al., 2013), a portion of these
economic impacts assumed to be associate with accessible transport.
Looking at the impact of concessionary travel for older people in the UK, Mackett (2014) analyses
the effects of concessionary travel on the contribution of older people to the economy, by assessing
which share of older people’s economic contributions is dependent on travel. The main results for the
UK are shown in the Table 1.4 below. These figures show that a large proportion of the economic
contribution to society by older people is dependent on travel and that improvement in accessibility could
enable them to contribute 10% to the national economy. An important caveat is that the percentage of thecontribution dependent on travel is calculated based on limited evidence from a variety of sources.
Table 1.4. Contributions to the economy dependent on travel by older people in 2030
Contributions
Direct and indirect
expenditures (e.g. shopping)
VolunteeringChildcare
Other non-tax contributions
Employment taxes
Taxes on expenditures
Other taxes
Total

GBP m

% requiring
travelTravel-dependent contributions (GBP m)

127 27990

114 551

14 5354 473
62 76233 11329 11119 795291 070

100
50
0
96
92
0

14 5352 237
031 78826 7820
189 893

Source: Adapted from Mackett (2014).

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1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS – 29

The flipside of the impact analysis using spending data is to look at avoided costs instead. A specificapproach to estimate avoided social costs was elaborated in the UK by Deloitte for the ECT Charity(2016). This examines the extent to which loneliness and isolation leads to health and social problems forolder people (e.g. earlier use of homecare, increase in doctor’s visits) and estimates the related costs.
Next, based on a review of the literature and focus groups, assumptions are made as to how cancommunity transport4 can reduce loneliness and isolation, and therefore savings in the order of
GBP 0.4 bn-1.1bn can be made annually. The logic map underlying these savings is presented in
Figure1. 3.
Figure 1.3. Framework for quantifying the benefits of community transport

Source: Deloitte Analysis for ECT Charity, Why Community Transport Matters (2016).

In this type of analysis the net macroeconomic contribution by encumbered passengers to the local /national economy would not be unidirectional; nonetheless, it could be argued that money spent on
preventative / reactive expenditures to make up for the lack of community transport could be directed
towards activities which generated greater wellbeing for mobility-impaired travellers and society at large.
Potential modifications/additions to the EIA framework
The evaluation methods used in the studies presented above could be replicated and expanded toestimate the benefits of accessibility. Analyses can assess the extent to which the economic contributions
by encumbered passengers are dependent on the presence of an accessible transport system, or the extent
to which accessible transport reduces loneliness and isolation and thus social care costs. Within this typeof framework, analysts can also look at the cost of alternative forms of travel as well as the increased
costs of assistance by transport operators (e.g. providing staff to accompany disabled passengers) tocompensate for inaccessible facilities. Chapter 3 gives an example that introduces the avoided cost of taxi
rides as part of the appraisal of pedestrian accessibility improvements.
When dealing with economic impacts that are dependent on accessible transport, it is important tonote that improvements in transport systems may not be sufficient to trigger the increase in economic andsocial activity. A more holistic perspective is necessary, taking into account the extent to which otherfeatures of the built environment (e.g. homes, public offices) are also conducive to greater activity. A

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30 – 1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

journey is only as accessible as its weakest link. The interdependence between transport and otheraccessibility measures needs to be highlighted in economic assessments.
Additional approaches and valuation techniques
Existing tools in transport planning and economics, discussed above, may not be sufficient toaccount for the benefits of accessible transport fully. We put forward two sets of approaches that can
provide additional techniques for benefit estimations: first, approaches that borrow from existing
techniques as applied to other areas of transport appraisal as well as other sectors; second, newmethodological approaches that either widen the scope of standard analysis or shift the focus to benefit
types otherwise unaccounted for.
Working with what we know – safety and distributional impacts
The estimation of transport benefits typically includes monetised safety benefits from reduced
accidents and incidents. Based on the projected reductions in accident rates, benefits are calculated bymultiplying the ‘value of a statistical life’ as indicated in national guidance times the estimated numberof deaths avoided following a transport intervention. The value of avoided injuries is another common
metric.
Similarly, in the field of accessibility, analysts can incorporate the value of passengers’ lives in theassessment of benefits. Measures used in healthcare impact assessments (e.g. in Russia, the UK and US),such as Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY), can be applied to transport analysis. A QALY is
calculated by looking at the extent to which an intervention improves the quality and length of life of anindividual and his/her ability to function in five dimensions, including mobility as such. QALY provides
a common currency for measuring the extent of health gains and supports decision makers withadditional information (Phillips, 2009). This is especially valuable given the far-reaching impacts thataccessible transport can have on the quality and possibly the length of mobility-impaired passengers’
lives.
The appraisal of distributional impacts is common practice in some ITF/OECD countries. Analysis
in this field aims to assess the variance of transport intervention impacts across different social groups. In
the UK, this is a mandatory component of transport appraisal and guidance is provided by WebTAG Unit
A4.2 (UK DfT, 2015). The analysis is mainly qualitative, but follows a consistent assessment framework.
With respect to accessibility, the framework introduces:•‘accessibility audits’, which involve both desk-based research and site visits to examine
specific features such as ease of access and information provision, and;•‘strategic accessibility assessments’, which involve geo-spatial analysis to assess theprevalence of disabled users in the corridor affected by the intervention

Altogether, the analysis feeds into an overall accessibility assessment, with scores ranging from‘detrimental’ to ‘highly beneficial’. Distributional analysis with a focus on accessibility can provide
valuable insights into the extent to which specific policies and investment provide benefits to the groups
that they aim to target, such as encumbered passengers.
New approaches – health, well-being and capability values
Emerging methodologies that assess the impact of transport interventions on health and well-being
more widely can also be adopted when looking at accessibility benefits. The rationale for introducing
health considerations is particularly strong given that a) improved accessibility often results in nonmarginal changes to transport demand, catering for those who did not use transport systems prior to theintervention, and b) the provision of better design and access can significantly reduce stress, anxiety andfear for mobility-impaired users. Two streams of research are relevant here.

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1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS – 31

First, researchers in the UK find evidence of the correlation between active transport modes(walking, cycling and public transport) and health aspects: people who commuted to work by active andpublic modes of transport have significantly lower body mass index (BMI) and percentage body fat thantheir counterparts who use private transport (Flint et al., 2014). These findings echo the outcomes of alongitudinal study of over 11 000 people aged 50 and over (Webb et al., 2012), whereby the BMI ofthose who switch to using buses when concessionary travel is are compared to those who continue to use
private cars. The study finds that older people who use public transport are less likely to be obese andless likely to become obese than those who do not.
Secondly, new empirical evidence from Korea (KOTI World-Brief 2015, Vol. 7 No. 70) considers
Universal Design features for transport services, with a focus on accessibility at airport terminals andsurface access. Mean energy consumption and RRI5 are collected for users without impairments, withvisual impairments and wheelchair users. The analysis reveals the differences in efforts and stressexperienced by each type of users, showing for example that visually impaired users experience thehighest levels of stress (see Table 1.5 below). The authors advocate accessibility policies that move awayfrom just qualitative surveys to incorporating this emerging quantitative evidence.
Table 1.5. Mean RRI of different users going through airport terminals (unit milliseconds)
Categories
Not encumbered, using
stairsNot encumbered, using
elevator
Not encumbered, using
escalator
Wheelchair, using
elevator
Visually impaired,using elevator
Visually impaired,using escalator
Average

Wait

Move

Check-in

Shopping

Security check

Restroom

Wait

Average

716.8

541.7

654

623.6

645.3

654.4

651.1

641

695.6

641

648.9

651.7

647

668.3

627.5

654.3

734.4

655.4

682.6

646.8

670.6

680.7

669.1

677.1

650.6

664.4

673.2

679.3

661.1

695.3

732.5

679.5

690.7

605.5

609.8

530.1

578.7

573.3

571.8

590.5

662.3

605.5

609.8

530.1

578.7

575.3

571.8

590.5

691.7

626.4

656.5

619.9

637.9

652.3

647.8

X

Source: Kim, J.C. et al., (2015).

Going forward, it will be important for those objective measures to be combined with subjective
measures to ensure that data is interpreted correctly. Neither of the methodological approaches describedhere leads to monetary estimates that can be directly used to quantify economic benefits – at least up to
the time of the Roundtable in March 2016. However, this work can certainly be developed to convert
health impacts such as obesity and stress into monetary values for obtaining overall benefits figures.
Even without monetary estimates, these studies shift the public discourse towards new types ofbenefits which should not be overlooked. Accessibility improvements and their related benefits can also
be analysed within the framework of capability values. Valuing and measuring better opportunities that
fulfil everyone’s capabilities involves developing indices of well-being and participation. The mostpopular to date is the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI), which tracks progress in thefields of social participation and subjective well-being. Similar indices with a focus on mobilityimpaired, older and encumbered passengers can become powerful monitoring tools that support policymakers in the implementation of legal requirements, and in the provision of data for economic
assessments.
Critically, such indices need to rely on consistent data collection and repeated surveys over time.
Recent efforts by STIF in the Paris region (Ile-de-France) to map transport accessibility provide an
example of the type of data that could be used to this end. STIF conducted a regional survey on impaired
mobility in 2013 and 2014, with three main objectives:
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32 – 1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS•

Identifying the part of the general population with impaired mobility: disabled persons(including their type of impairment) and persons with temporary impairment (pregnant women,
injured people, and those travelling with young children or with luggage...) – see Figure 1.4•

Comparing the daily mobility behaviour of disabled people with that of the general population(number of trips, purpose, modes of transport according to the type of disability, etc.)•

Assessing the perception by the population of accessibility of the different transport modes andof the measures that have been recently implemented by the population in general and by
disabled people in particular.

STIF plan to repeat the survey again around 2020, in order to monitor changes in use, behaviour andperceptions around accessibility. As of 2014, the Ile-de-France resident population over 5 years of age isclassified as per the diagram below.
Figure 1.4. Characterization of the population of Ile-de-France regarding accessibility

12%

People with disabilities

7%

4.7%
Official recognition of disability

Disease, injury, pregnancy: 1.8%
Young children: 5.6%

0.3%
0.1%

7.5%

1.7%

Detected:functional
limitations

9.7%

2.6%

Declared: Impairment or
chronic disease with an
impact on mobility

2.0%

Temporarily
encumbered passengers
with no disabilities

2.8%

81%

People without any
regular difficulty intransport accessibility

2.6%
Luggage, parcels: 22%

Source: STIF (2014).

Similar efforts are under way in Ireland as part of the Transport Access for All strategy. A set ofquestions for users, first distributed in 2008 and repeated in 2011 covers issues of access, comfort and thequality of travel for encumbered passengers. The first questionnaires will form a baseline to provide, inthe future, an on-going indication of progress in terms of actual improvements to the experiences ofpeople with disabilities in using public transport.
Although approaches based on well-being and the fulfilment of everyone’s capabilities are not easily
married with the benefit estimates typical of CBA and EIA, they provide a tangible complement to more
standard analysis in this field, and they highlight the far-reaching impacts of accessible transport systems
on their beneficiaries. In addition, existing measures of well-being such as the HDI can be enhanced with
the inclusion of transport accessibility indicators.

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1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS – 33

A way forward: Research and policy implications
Research agenda
Participants in the Roundtable strongly highlighted the need for further research, in order to develop
and strengthen the benefit estimation techniques presented in this report. More specifically, we
recommend three types of studies:
1. Ex-post case studies of accessibility improvements
2. A large, ex-ante assessment of proposed measures to improve accessibility
3. Cross-sectoral studies to map out the benefits of accessibility beyond transport practice.
With respect to ex-post case studies, this report cites research that provides primers for thedevelopment of further work. Some of the key elements necessary for ex-post assessments include:•

Data availability, to a minimum on actual and unmet travel demand, and journey times, before
and after the implementation of the accessibility measure;•

The ability to identify the discrete effects of accessible transport and/or Universal Design as
opposed to other interventions which may be confounding factors, and;•A clear identification of beneficiaries, and transparent decisions as to whose benefits are being
measured consistently before and after the intervention.

By resorting to travel surveys, household surveys and/or census information, transport operators’
data and on-site interviews, analysts can gather sufficient data to carry out the case studies. Howevereven in the presence of good data, ex-post analysis needs to be very clear in relation to the types ofbenefits and beneficiaries been considered.
A large, ex-ante assessment at the international level in this area would be extremely useful. In asimilar fashion to the work carried out on the benefits of tourism for all by the European Commission in2012, a team of experts across countries could be gathered with the goal of exploring different benefit
estimation techniques and provide reference values for future work. Furthermore, this work could feed
into the compilation of a ‘manual case study’ for benefits estimation.
The accessibility measure assessed could be either a specific planned improvement resulting frominternational standards / legislation (e.g. information provision at public transport stops) or a broader setof Universal Design measures bundled together. The techniques employed to value the benefits shouldreflect the diversity of approaches outlined in this report, starting with a narrower focus (standard
CBA/EIA) and progressively widening this scope to include disaggregated impacts, wider impacts andnew methodological approaches.
The third recommendation is a specific call for accessibility to be more explicitly integrated inresearch and policy dealing with health and social wellbeing. Accessible transport contributes to broader
objectives to do with health and wellbeing, however these benefits sit largely outside of thosetraditionally accounted for in transport project appraisal. Likewise, research in the field of accessible
transport ought to bring in specialists and policy advisors from health and other sectors.
The cross-sector links are broad, ranging from emerging evidence that links health benefits to active
transport modes generally, and the importance of having access to healthcare and social support facilities.
Examples of potential integration include the assessment of QALY impacts from improved accessibility
to public transport. Greater collaborative research efforts across sectors can strengthen the case forinvestment in accessibility.

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34 – 1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Policy considerations
In many ITF/OECD countries, legislators and governments have explicitly enshrined accessibility asa legal requirement and have thus made it a key objective of transport policy; but progress in this field isslow and the implementation of accessibility-enhancing measures is constrained by a number of barriers.
These include competing demands for investment due to budget constraints, and an unclear
understanding of the economic benefits of improved accessibility including how these benefits fit in atransport investment context. While costs are usually known, benefits are not clearly defined, quantified,
documented, or attributed to transport.
This report stresses the need to remove the barriers that limit understanding of these benefits in orderto make better investment decisions in this area of transport policy. The inclusion of accessibility
considerations in a consistent appraisal framework will help policy-makers as well as transport providers,by highlighting both the positive effects of making improvements and the costs of inaction. Once theseeffects are taken into account, different accessibility improvements can be compared with one another, as
well as with other investment types, in a more objective way to address trade-offs. In addition, budgetarypressures based on cost considerations can be better balanced with a narrative on benefits.
The approaches to identifying and measuring the benefits of improved accessibility described in thisreport are not easy to implement and will require inputs from experts, together with specialised analysts
and direct contributions by the beneficiaries of those improvements. Progress in this field relies on policy
makers appropriately supporting research efforts to consolidate knowledge and provide case studies fordifferent accessibility measures. This will involve not just providing the funding needed for additional
research, but also being open to incorporating findings in national appraisal frameworks and torecognising the cross-sector nature of this type of transport interventions.

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1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS – 35

Notes

1

More information at: http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Life-stages/healthyageing/healthy-ageing

2

In CBA specifically, analysts may treat revenue increases as a transfer of benefits rather thanadditional benefits, depending on the consumer surplus measure applied to the CBA function. Itshould be noted that in the UK bus companies receive compensation for the revenue that theywould have received from older and disabled passengers had they made the journey previously
but not for the extra journeys generated.

3“Toolkit for the economic evaluation of World Bank transport projects”, Final report (Chapter
6) by the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS), University of Leeds for the World Bank,
September 2003.

4

Here the specific definition used is Community Transport, referring to transport that is provided
to meet the specific needs of groups of people. This includes accessible transport, defined astransport services for people with disabilities who find it difficult or impossible to use
conventional passenger transport, e.g. dial-a-rides, dial-abuses and social car schemes

5

The biggest wave generated by the heart is known as the R wave and the interval between the R
waves is referred to as RRI. RRI gets longer during rest and shorter during exercise or whenexperiencing stress

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36 – 1. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

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2. TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK FOR IDENTIFYING AND MEASURING THE BENEFITS OF ACCESSIBILITY – 39

Chapter 2
Towards a framework for identifying and measuring the benefits ofaccessibility

Daphne Federing
HDR, Washington, DC, United States of America
David Lewis1
HDR, Ottawa, CanadaThis chapter (i) explains the motivation for articulating the benefits of accessibility; (ii) provides anarrative basis for articulating how accessibility affects economic and social life; and (iii) moves towards
a framework for quantifying the benefits of accessibility.
In examining laws, regulations and judicial proceedings in different nations, the chapter finds that mostview cost as a limiting factor on what public and private entities can be compelled to provide in relation
to the accessibility of transportation, the built environment, employment, and services. This is so even in
the context of constitutionally and legislatively enshrined human rights. The chapter also finds that costbenefit balancing is emerging as a necessary part of the accessibility governance framework. Whenaddressing the specific application of accessibility rights, governments, regulatory bodies and courts
around the world deal comprehensively with costs but fail to value important categories of benefit, suchas the reduction of stigmatic harms, “option” benefits and “existence” value, and capability value. The
chapter describes progress towards a comprehensive narrative and analytical framework for describing
and measuring such benefits.

1

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Introduction
This chapter has three objectives, (i) to explain the motivation for articulating the benefits ofaccessibility; (ii) to provide a narrative basis for articulating how accessibility affects economic andsocial life; and (iii) to move towards a framework for quantifying the benefits of accessibility. To serveas the basis for a policy narrative, the framework needs to be easy to communicate and free of jargon, orat least free of jargon that is not intuitively obvious in its meaning. To succeed as the basis forquantifying the benefits of accessibility, the framework needs to reflect proven methodologicalapplications or give clear indications of where additional methodological research is required.
Barriers to the realization of a fully accessibility transportation system and built environment lie inthe very nature of the constitutional and legislative mandates that establish accessibility as a societal goal
and a human right. The United States, Canada, the European Union, Australia and many nations of Asia
and Africa have either established or are considering constitutional and legislative protections for people
with disabilities against barriers to participating in the activities of daily life. Virtually all such mandates
are formulated as human rights legislation. The Americans with Disabilities Act, for example, is crafted
as an anti-discrimination law, not unlike the civil rights laws of the 1960s that prohibit discrimination on
the basis of race; and not dissimilar from the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections against
discrimination on the basis of religion. The Preamble to the United Nations Convention on The Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), now signed by more than a 150 countries, “Reaffirm[s] theuniversality, indivisibility, interdependence and interrelatedness of all human rights and fundamental
freedoms and the need for persons with disabilities to be guaranteed their full enjoyment without
discrimination.” Similarly, the Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed that accessible transportation
provisions of the Canadian Transportation Act are, in essence, human rights protections that invoke theantidiscrimination principles of the Canadian Charter of Human Rights [Council of Canadians with
Disabilities v. Via Rail Canada Inc., 2007]. In Australia, accessibility mandates fall under the“Australians with Disability Discrimination Act [Disability Discrimination Act 1992]; the European
Union has enacted “The European Directive on Equal Treatment” [Council Directive 2000/78/EC] thatobliges all member states to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities.
Despite the fact that they establish accessibility as a human right, the mandates (i) universallyacknowledge costs and (ii) often incorporate cost-benefit balancing as legitimate considerations in theirimplementation. The acknowledgement of costs represents a barrier to accessibility simply because
making and keeping facilities accessible entails expenses which not all are willing to incur. The
acknowledgement of benefits and cost-benefit balancing can cut both ways. On the one hand,recognizing that high costs can be balanced by proportionately high benefits helps counter the economic
threat posed by the acknowledgement of costs alone. This advantage is offset however where thelanguage or interpretation (the narrative) of legal mandates would indicate that costs overshadow
benefits, or where the definition of benefits is too narrowly conceived.
How societies treat the costs and benefits of accessibility
The similarity regarding the treatment of costs among the accessibility mandates of various nations
is evident in Table 2.1. Perhaps the most far-reaching statement of disability rights is the United Nations
Convention on The Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), signed by more than a 150 countries
since its adoption by the U.N. General Assembly in December 2006. The CRPD explicitly incorporates
the consideration of costs to individual entities when determining what actions must be undertaken to
ensure accessibility, so as to be sure “not [to] impos[e] a disproportionate or undue burden.”
Other laws and directives predating the CRPD, such as the United States’ Americans with
Disabilities Act (1990), the Australian Disability Discrimination Act (1992), and The United Kingdom’s
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 also included provisions limiting accessibility requirements on

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specific entities if meeting those requirements would result in an “undue hardship” (Americans with
Disabilities Act, Section 36.104), “unjustifiable hardship” (Australian Disability Discrimination Act
1992, Cth, section 31) or would not be “reasonable.” (Disability Discrimination Act 1995). The Canadian
Human Rights Act stipulates that providers of service to the public (such as public transportation) mustshow that “reasonable accommodation has been provided up to the point of undue hardship.”Table 2.1. Legislative limits on undue financial burdenCountry /Governingbody

Laws/Rule regarding accessand prohibiting
discrimination on basis of
disability

Limits on accommodation requirements

UnitedNations

Convention on The Rights of
Persons with Disabilities(CRPD)

Accommodation required as long as it does “not impos[e] adisproportionate or undue burden, . . .” [Convention on The Rights of
Persons With Disabilities, Article 2, 2006]

Australia

The Australian Disability
Discrimination Act 1992

Accommodation required unless would impose an “unjustifiablehardship” [Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Cth, section 31].

CanadaCovered by the Canadian
Charter of Rights, Freedoms
and the Canada Transportation
Act

Service providers must make provision for accessible transport up thepoint of ‘undue hardship’ [Canada Transportation Act and Council of
Canadians with Disabilities v. Via Rail Canada Inc., 2007]

New Zealand

Human Rights Act 1993
(amended Human Rights
Amendment Act 2001)

Accommodation required, including for access to “places, vehicles, andfacilities,” except “when it would not be reasonable to require theprovision of such special services or facilities” (section 43)

European
Union

European Accessibility Act(proposed 2015)

Accessibility requirements referred to in Article 3 apply to the extent
that they do not impose a disproportionate burden on the economic
operators concerned.” [Directive Of The European Parliament and of
The Council , Article 12]

UnitedKingdom

Disability Discrimination Act
1995; The Equality Act 2010

Prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities, requiring“reasonable adjustments” which includes consideration of “financial andother costs which would be incurred” (1995)

Americans with Disabilities
Act, 1990

Entities must to make ‘reasonable accommodation’ “unless suchcovered entity can demonstrate that the accommodation would impose
an undue hardship . . . “or “would result in an undue burden, i.e.,significant difficulty or expense.” [Americans With Disabilities Act Of
1990, Sec. 12111 and section 36.104]

United States

More recent initiatives, such as the European Union’s proposed European Accessibility Act,
continue to explicitly incorporate limits on accessibility requirements so as not to “impose adisproportionate burden on the economic operators concerned” (Directive of The European Parliament
And of The Council on the Approximation of the Laws, Regulations and Administrative Provisions of
the Member States as Regards the Accessibility Requirements for Products and Services, Article 12).
The concept of undue, disproportionate or unjust burden or hardship in these laws is focused on
those costs which would be incurred by a public or private entity to ensure accessibility, as well as thepoint at which these costs become so high as to no longer require making the accommodations. The
Australian Disability Discrimination Act stipulates that accessible accommodation is required unlessdoing so would impose an unjustifiable hardship in relation to the financial circumstances and estimatedamount of expenditure required of the entity making the adjustments. The Americans with Disabilities
Act in the United States also invokes the term “undue hardship” and defines it as an “action requiring
significant difficulty or expense” [Emens 2008, p. 871]. The CRPD specifies that ‘economic operators’
look at “the size, resources and nature of the economic operators” and “the estimated costs and benefits

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for the economic operators” when assessing whether or not an accessibility accommodation “imposes asdisproportionate burden” (Convention on The Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Article 12, 2006).
Yet, what makes an accessibility accommodation “reasonable” and not an “undue burden” is, in thewords of legal scholar Elizabeth Emens, “a murky business” [2008, p. 877, fn 118]. With notable
exceptions, such as Australia’s Disability Discrimination Act in which the benefits of accessibility are
acknowledged as a factor to be balanced against cost, an economic barrier to accessibility arises from thetendency of costs to overshadow benefits in both legal and non-legal conversations about theaccessibility mandates of most nations. Emens speculates on possible reasons for this including legal andcultural factors. From a legal perspective, she notes that the Americans with Disabilities Act is different
from other human rights legislation because it defines discrimination in terms of design change andaccommodation: Under the ADA, the term ‘discriminate’ includes … not making reasonableaccommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with adisability …” [Emens 2008, p. 877, fn 118]. Because of the explicit accommodation requirement, the
ADA is likely to be understood as imposing costs.
From a cultural perspective, Emens [2008, p882] speculates that society’s ideas about disability
make costs more visible than benefits:“A prevailing assumption about disability is that it means loss or lack. Indeed, theetymology of ‘disability’ suggests that something is missing that needs to be made up for,filled in, supplied. Disability is thus often understood as something lesser that requires the
distribution of resources toward it to compensate. For this reason, disability may begenerally associated with imposing costs on some for the benefits of others.”
Emens [2008, p882] also says that despite efforts by advocates and scholars to promote a “social”
model of disability, the “medical” model prevails in the broader culture, as does the sense that adisability is a lack that requires costly filling. Whereas the medical model of disability views disability asa medical problem requiring a medical solution, the social model says that someone is disabled by theinteraction between her body or mind and the disabling environment that is built for one kind of body or
mind rather than another.
“It seems plausible that this understanding of disability primes courts, commentators andothers to see the accommodations made for disability as beneficial to those for whom they aredesigned and costly for all others, particularly for those others who are not disabled.”[Emens, p884]
Although society tends to give more weight to the costs of accessibility than to the benefits, there are
two channels through which attempts are being made to take benefits into account. One is throughjudicial proceedings; the other is regulatory analysis. In general, benefits tend to be defined morenarrowly than costs.
Judicial proceedings
A number of influential court cases provide foundations for the way societies tend to think about thebenefits of accessibility. In the United States, the case Zande v. Wisconsin Department of Administration[1995, 44 F.3d 538 (7th Circuit)] is pivotal. Two matters of accessibility and accommodation were atissue, (i) an employer’s refusal to allow Ms. Vande Zande to telecommute and to provide computerequipment to enable her to do so; and (ii) the employer’s refusal to alter the design of a kitchenette on
her floor at work to install the counter two inches lower than planned so that she could use it rather thanusing the bathroom sink for activities such as washing out her coffee cup.

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The Court’s decision in the Vande Zande case set two key precedents, one positive one negative. On
the plus side, the Court ruled that benefits matter as well as costs in making a determination of what
constitutes undue financial burden. On the down side, the Court employed a very narrow definition ofwhat constitutes benefit. Noting that the ADA defines “an action requiring significant difficulty or
expense” but offers incomplete guidance on its application, the Court ruled that the “financial conditionof the employer is only one consideration” and concluded that “undue” must be interpreted to mean thatthe expense is undue in relation to the resulting benefit, as well as the employer’s resources. On the other
hand, the Vande Zande court case established a very narrow definition of benefit: it ruled that the
telecommuting accommodation was not reasonable because it would interfere with teamwork and directsupervision, yet without acknowledging that telecommuting would also benefit many workers, whether
or not they have disabilities, and could lead to potentially lower corporate overhead expenses: and it
ruled that the harm involved in using the different sink was “merely stigmatic” and therefore too
insignificant to warrant mandatory accommodation.
The Vande Zande case was decided in 1995. A 2007 Canadian Supreme Court decision recognizes abroader perspective on benefits. In Council of Canadians with Disabilities v. VIA Rail (a ruling against
the use of passenger rail cars that do not meet a stated standard of accessibility) the Court states asfollows:“A factor relied on to justify the continuity of a discriminatory barrier in almost every case is
the cost of reducing or eliminating it to accommodate the needs of the person seeking access.
This is a legitimate factor to consider: Central Alberta Dairy Pool v. Alberta (Human Rights
Commission), 1990 2.S.C.R. 489, at pp. 520-21. But, as this Court admonished in Grismer, atpara. 41, tribunals must be wary of putting too low a value on accommodating the disabled(emphasis added).”A subsequent Canadian case goes further still in broadening the scope of benefits deemed legitimate
in balancing judgments about of undue hardship. In a 2007 decision, upheld by the Supreme Court in2008 [Council of Canadians with Disabilities v. Air Canada], the Canadian Transportation Agency (aquasi-judicial tribunal of the Canadian federal government) ruled against the legality of charging
personal assistants of passengers with disabilities for a second seat (the “one-person-one-fare” ruling, or
1P1F). In its decision [Norman and Neubauer v Air Canada, 2008] the Agency explicitly “recognized theevidence presented by the applicants’ expert of the following positive social impact” of ‘cross-sector
benefits’ from reduced pressure on social welfare systems, and lower fiscal burdens related to the‘insurance value’ of a potential future need of persons currently without disabilities for accessible
facilities, and an ‘existence value’ of ensuring a protection deemed an aspect of civil society. On thisbasis the Agency found that the benefits were sufficient to justify the estimated increase in overall ticket
prices likely to result from a 1P1F policy and that the costs of such a policy were reasonable in light of
the improved access to the transportation network for persons with disabilities.
Regulatory Analysis
In nations with broad constitutional and legal mandates for accessibility, the mandates are given
operational meaning through the process of government regulation. In so doing, governments employ in
one form or another, a process called Regulatory Impact Analysis (“RIA”), or regulatory assessment or
regulatory evaluation. The role of an RIA is to provide a detailed and systematic appraisal of thepotential impacts of a new regulation in order to assess whether the regulation is likely to achieve thedesired objectives. The philosophy underlying RIA underlines the need to ensure value for money and to
guard against the risk that regulatory costs will exceed benefits for society as a whole. From thisperspective, the central purpose of an RIA is to ensure that regulation will be “welfare-enhancing” fromthe societal viewpoint – that is, that total benefits will exceed total costs.
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Since regulatory impact analysis is generally conducted in a comparative context, with differently
scoped alternatives for achieving stated objectives, the breadth of benefits considered will go far indetermining the degree of accessibility to be mandated by regulation. A notable example is Australia’s
1999 regulatory analysis designed “to assist decisions regarding the provision of transportation services
to people with disabilities under the Australian Disability Discrimination Act” [Attorney General’s
Department, Government of Australia, 1999]. The Australian RIA cites as its objective, “To promoterecognition and acceptance within the community of the principle that persons with disabilities have thesame fundamental rights as the rest of the community.”
The RIA also states, however, that, “The Disability Discrimination Act also recognizes that theserights do not mean access at any cost; there must be a balance between benefit and cost.”
Since the RIA compares the costs and benefits of mandating alternative degrees of accessibility, thescope and definition of benefits counted in the Cost-Benefit Analysis matters greatly. Typical of manysuch analyses, the Australian study quantifies two categories of benefit, (i) those associated withprojected additional transportation trip-making; and (ii) “cross-sector” benefits. Cross-sector benefits(resource savings that accessible transportation facilitates through the substitution of distributed services
for more fiscally costly home-based services) arise across a broad spectrum, including services likechiropody, meals, and home care.
Notwithstanding the seemingly wide range of benefits it considered, the Australian study found thatthe costs of the selected option would exceed the benefits by fully AUD 1.1 billion. Indeed, higher
accessibility standards than those in the selected option were rejected as, “not being consistent with theconcept of unjustifiable hardship as set out in the DDA.”
A more recent Regulatory Impact Analysis, this one in the United States concerning theestablishment of architectural accessibility requirements for commercial and state and local governmentbuildings, recognizes a wider range of benefits. The RIA [US Department of Justice, 2004, 2010] picks
up on Canadian themes outlined above in stating that:“Benefits are primarily represented by the creation of social value, and can be divided into
three categories. “Use value” is the value that people both with and without disabilities derivefrom the use of accessible facilities. “Option value” is the value that people both with andwithout disabilities derive from the opportunity to obtain the benefit of accessible facilities.
Finally, “existence value” is the value that people both with and without disabilities derivefrom the guarantees of equal protection and non-discrimination that are accorded through theprovision of accessible facilities.”
In a significant development, In 2011, the U.S. federal government issued Executive Order 13,563
on cost-benefit analysis (CBA) authorizing agencies to consider “human dignity” (stigmatic harms,
humiliation, embarrassment) in identifying the costs and benefits of proposed regulations (see Box 2.1
and discussion later).

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Box 2.1. Human dignity and evaluating reductions in stigmatic harm
In 2011, the U.S. federal government issued Executive Order 13,563 on cost-benefit analysis (CBA)
authorizing agencies to consider “human dignity” (stigmatic harms, humiliation, embarrassment) in identifying
the costs and benefits of proposed regulations. Bayefsky writes that just prior to that step in 2010,“The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a Rule regarding non-discrimination on the basis of disability instate and local government services [sic] [and many commercial entities]. This Rule requires increased accessfor disabled people in a variety of settings. The [Regulatory Impact Assessment] RIA first considers dignityrelated benefits in a cost-benefit analysis of a specific part of the rule, which sets standards requiring sufficientspace in single-user toilet rooms for a wheelchair user to transfer to the toilet from the side rather than from thefront. This means that wheelchair users will not have to go to an establishment with someone who can help
them in the bathroom, or go alone to the bathroom and risk needing help once they get there. The RIA explainsthat “[a]lthough the monetized costs of these requirements substantially exceed the monetized benefits, thebenefits that have not been monetized (avoiding stigma and humiliation, protecting safety, and enhancing
independence) are expected to be quite high.”
If the “avoidance of stigma and humiliation” is understood as a dignity interest, then dignity as an unmonetized benefit is being set against monetized costs and used to help make up a shortfall in monetized
benefits. DOJ, in other words, is practicing Cost Monetization.
Yet the RIA then moves closer to fuller monetization. First, the RIA conducts a break-even analysis. The
RIA calculates that the monetized costs of the new standards exceed their monetized benefits by USD 36.2
million per year for one type of toilet room, and USD 19.14 million per year for another type of toilet room.
Therefore, “for the costs and benefits to break even in this context, people with the relevant disabilities will
have to value safety, independence, and the avoidance of stigma and humiliation at just under 5 cents per use”
for one type of toilet room, and USD 2.20 per use for another type of toilet room.
The attempt to put a price on safety, independence, and the avoidance of stigma and humiliation suggeststhat the RIA is approaching Full Monetization which involves the monetization of dignity. The RIA confirms
this impression with a section elsewhere in the Rule titled “Value of Stigmatic Harm.” In this section, the RIA
measures “the proportion of persons with disabilities who elect to use adapted transit when dial-a-ride isavailable at equal or lesser fare and better time costs,” on the basis that these people’s preference for“integrated transportation service as opposed to segregated service suggests an interest in avoiding the stigma
of being disabled.” The RIA uses this proportion to calculate a “weight on the value of time” of 0.25, which itthen applies to the time savings measure used to calculate monetized benefits. The result is to narrow the gap
between monetized costs and monetized benefits. This exercise, in essence, monetizes the “avoidance ofstigmatic harm” through the medium of people’s valuations of time on the basis of a revealed-preference
study.”
Source: Bayefsky, Yale Law Journal (The RIA in question was conducted by HDR as consultants to the Department ofJustice).

Accounting comprehensively for the benefits of accessibility: Towards an international
standard
When examining the judicial and regulatory record, we see that the kind of benefits considered
relevant and measurable in relation to accessibility ranges from very narrow to fairly broad. What islacking is a consistent and comprehensive approach, within countries and, needless to say, acrossnations. The authors’ preliminary framework for such an approach is presented in Figure 2.1. An outline
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of possible means of quantification, monetization, and indexing for different dimensions of theframework is given in Table 2.2.
Drawing on the judicial and regulatory record as well as progress in welfare economics, theframework recognizes both use and non-use related benefits; benefits to people both with and without
disabilities; benefits as actual outcomes as well as the freedoms available to people to realize an
improved quality of life; and, incorporates reduced stigmatic harms and humiliation as distinct benefitsof accessibility.
The framework combines elements of utility theory, as manifest in Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA),and it also draws on aspects of Capability Theory. Cost-Benefit Analysis is an established means oforganizing and facilitating a public discourse on the use of resources and the likelihood of welfare gains
in relation to prospective alternatives for change. Capability Theory as advanced by Amartya Sen andothers, holds that governments should consider not only the kind of lives we manage to lead (theoutcomes, or “benefits” in CBA), but also, as explained by Sen, the freedom that we have to choose
between different styles and ways of living. Capability thus refers to ‘the real opportunity that we have toaccomplish what we value’. It is ‘the various combinations of functionings (beings and doings) that theperson can achieve. Capability reflects a person’s freedom to lead one type of life or another... to choose
from possible livings’ (Sen 2009). The operational application of the Capability approach is by no means
as advanced as Cost-Benefit Analysis but has been influential in the formulation of various indices ofwell-being (see later).
The framework recognizes the benefits of accessibility in four broad categories, (i) agency benefits(ii) user benefits; (iii) non-user benefits; and (iv) capability. (Note that capability elements to the right ofthe dashed line in Figure 1 and below the dashed line in Table 2.2 and not additive to elements to the left
and above the dashed line).
Agency benefits
Accessible vehicles and facilities can lead to fewer accidents among agency employees andreductions in some maintenance and operating costs.
Worker Safety. Improvements such as level platforms, improved wayfinding, and accessible ticket
kiosks can improve worker safety in addition to that of transit patrons.
O&M Savings. Some improvements can reduce the wear on facilities, such as level platforms (aswheelchairs travel more smoothly across gaps) and others can lead to greater independence of passengers
as they navigate facilities, and which in turn leads to less worker time to assist passengers.
New passenger demand can also lead to increased revenue to service providers. Ordinarily however
increased revenue from fares is not treated as an economic benefit in Cost-Benefit Analysis since it often
represents a transfer from taxpayers (through subsidy) to passengers.

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Figure 2.1. Framework for measuring the benefits of accessibility

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Table 2.2. Framework for measuring the benefits of accessibility: Quantification, monetization,and indexation
Class ofbenefitType ofbenefit

Beneficiary

Description

Quantification

Monetization indexing

Use

Mobility

People withdisabilities

Wider access to desired
destinations, generated
trips.

Demand analysis;
Geographic information
systems; Gravity andIsochronic indicesWillingness to
pay/accept;

Use

Mobility

Time savings

Demand analysis

Value of time

Use

Mobility

Improved health outcomes

Quality-adjusted life years

Use

Mobility

People withdisabilities

Net new employment

Labour market analysis andmultiplier effects

Quality ofTime Spent
Quality ofTime Spend
Quality ofTime Spent

People withdisabilities
People withdisabilities
People withdisabilities

Increased comfort

Demand analysis

Increased convenience

Demand analysis

Reduced stigmatic harms

Cost monetization or
demand analysis

Use

SafetyPeople withdisabilities

Reduced fatalities, injuries,
property damage

Demand and incidence
analysis

Use

Mobility

People without
disabilities

Wider access to desired
destinations, generated
trips.

Demand analysis;
Geographic information
systems; Gravity andIsochronic indices

Value of quality-adjusted
life years.
Personal income(productivity); tax
revenue
Willingness to pay
premiums
Willingness to pay
premiums
Willingness to pay/accept
premiums
Willingness-to-pay based
statistical value of life,
limb, suffering, property
Willingness to
pay/accept; value ofquality-adjusted life
years.

Use

Mobility

Time savings

Demand analysis

Value of time

Use

Mobility

Increased comfort

Demand analysis

Use

Mobility

Increased convenience

Demand analysis

Reduced fatalities, injuries,
property damage
Income gains throughhigher labour market
participation andeducational attainment
Social service agency
resources

Demand and incidence
analysis

Use
Use
Use

People withdisabilities
People withdisabilities

People without
disabilities
People without
disabilities
People without
disabilities
People without
disabilities

Willingness to pay
premiums
Willingness to pay
premiums
Statistical value of life,
limb, suffering, property

Use

SafetyUse

Macroeconomic
Impacts

Society-at-large

Non-Use

Cross-Sector

Society at-large

Non-UseOptionValue

Society at large

Insurance

Demographic analysis;stated preference analysis

Non-UseExistence
Value

Society at-large

Civic society

Stated preferenceContingent valuation

Periodic randomized sample
surveyIndex of participation indaily life

Periodic randomized sample
surveyIndex of health,education, and wellness

Periodic randomized survey

Index of subjective wellbeing

Capability

Capability
Capability

People withdisabilities
People withdisabilities
People withdisabilities

Access to freedoms
through due process;political process; judicial
process
Increased life-opportunities
through access to health,employment, education,social outlets …
Increased subjective wellbeing

Input-output analysis
Demand and budget analysis

Direct, indirect andinduced GDP
Budgetary resourcesavings
Willingness to
pay/contingent valuation
analysis

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User benefits
User-related benefits stem from the consumption of accessible facilities and arise for two categories
of people, those with and those without disabilities.
For people with disabilities, user-related benefits take three forms; mobility benefits, improvementsin the quality of time spent travelling; and safety.
•

Mobility: Mobility benefits of improved accessibility to transportation systems and the built
environment can arise in the form of increased geographic reach (“larger destination sheds”) for
people with disabilities to job opportunities, healthcare, educational facilities, and social
networks. Improved health and wellness can arise from greater access to healthcare services
and facilities.1 Such increased reach can also yield net new (or higher wage) employment andgreater long-run education and related income opportunities. Mobility benefits can also arise in
the form of time and cost savings for currently-made trips. As shown in Figure 2.1, theincreased range of destinations can yield greater employment, education and income for people
with disabilities, resulting in macro-economic gains (gains to GDP) and government tax
revenues.

•

Quality: Enhanced accessibility can improve the quality of trip-making in various respects.
People with disabilities can travel more independently, free of dependence on friends, family,
or volunteer assistance and free of stigmatic harms, humiliation and embarrassment (seeBox 2.1).

•

Safety: Access improvements such as the reduction or elimination of gaps between platforms
and rail carriages can measurably reduce the number of passenger fatalities and injuries.
Reductions in the frequency of property damage (to things such as wheelchairs) also arise.

All three categories of mobility benefit can result in net new employment and education and related
income opportunities with associated incremental (as distinct from economic transfers) macro-economic
effects (direct, indirect, induced economic impacts). Their incremental nature makes them additive in thecontext of Cost-Benefit Analysis.
For people without disabilities, user benefits also take three forms; mobility benefits; improvementsin the quality of spent travelling; and safety. Although employment and educational effects may arise forpeople without disabilities, these are far less likely to represent net new or “incremental” effects from an
economic perspective.

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Box 2.2. Wider benefits of accessibility: Accessible ticketing machines
Using an accessible ticketing machine or kiosk is faster than using one which is non-accessible or only
partly accessible. Cost Benefit Analysis recognizes the value travelers place on their time. For example,
current guidance in the United States (from the U.S. Department of Transportation [USDOT]) recommends
USD 44.30 per hour as the value of travel time savings for air and high-speed rail travelers (all purposes)(USDOT, 2015). Thus, the benefit to a traveler of the time saved from using an accessible ticketing machineor kiosk would be estimated by multiplying the number of minutes saved by the value of that person’s time(e.g. 5 minutes saved multiplied by USD 44.30/hour, for a total of USD 3.69 per use).
But in addition to making the check-in process go faster, an accessible kiosk could also make the process
more comfortable (or less uncomfortable) – for example, by not requiring an awkward reach for buttons.
Multiple studies have shown that people are willing to pay for a more comfortable travel experience – say,being able to sit down during a subway ride instead of standing. Drawing from such studies, analysts canestimate the value of greater comfort by applying a premium (or “mark-up”) on the base value of the time.
One estimate of this premium is 50% (Goodwin, 1976 cited in HDR Decision Economics, 2008; additional
research summarized in USDOT, 2014). In other words, five minutes saved of uncomfortable travel time – ortime using a non-accessible ticketing machine – is worth 50% more than five minutes of time saved that is notuncomfortable.
Additionally, evidence indicates (see Box 2.1) that people attach greater value to time that is spent
without experiencing humiliation or embarrassment, such as time spent struggling with facilities andequipment or having to ask someone for assistance. The value of avoiding time spent enduring ‘stigmatic
harm’ can be estimated in a similar manner to the value of improved comfort. According to one estimate, theadded premium to the base value of time per hour for avoiding such stigmatic harm is about 25% [Lewis,
1985].
The premium for greater comfort and the premium for avoided stigmatic harm can both be applied to ouraccessible ticketing machine example from above, in which 5 minutes of time is saved by using the accessible
equipment. Those saved 5 minutes were minutes that would have previously been spent in uncomfortableconditions and with additional risk of stigmatic harm; the value of that time saved has a premiums of 50% and
25% added, increasing the value of the time saved by an additional 88%.

Non-user benefits
Non-user benefits of accessibility arise in the form of cross-sector resource savings, option value,and existence value.
•

Cross-sector benefits: Cross-sector benefits are economies achievable in another sector of theeconomy as a result of expenditure in the transport sector. Such economies are manifest
principally in the form benefits to non-transportation social service programs. Some studies
have shown that more accessible transit can relieve demand and financial pressure on nontransportation social safety net programs. The reverse is also true; reductions in accessibility
lead either to increased expenditures on non-transportation social service expenditures (health,nutrition and unemployment support programs) or, alternatively, to reduced benefits for thosein need of such programs.

•

Option value: Option value can be viewed as the willingness of individuals who do not use aparticular resource (such as an accessible rail service) to pay for the option of using it should
they deem it desirable to do so. Option value also extends to the willingness of users of theresource to use it more extensively. The U.K. Department for Transport states that:“Option values are associated with unexpected use of the transport facility which is not built
into demand forecasts and would otherwise not appear in Cost-Benefit Analysis as a benefit;
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Option values are related to individuals’ attitude to uncertainty - in practice a range of option
values is likely to be found within the population.”•

Existence value: Existence value is defined as a person’s willingness to pay for a resource forwhich he or she has no current or future plans for use. The existence value of accessibility isthe value that people both with and without disabilities derive from the guarantees of equal
protection and non- discrimination that are accorded through the provision of accessible
facilities.

Capability value
The Capability perspective on benefits recognizes increases in the range of freedoms that newly
accessible facilities open up for people to pursue life chances, opportunities and ways of life. It also
recognizes the wider range of access to rights, and diverse facets of social justice facilitated by a moreaccessible environment.
As indicated above, the Capability approach has been influential in human development theories andvaluation methods (see Box 2.3). It has led to the creation the Human Development Index (HDI); theInequality-Adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI); and the Gender Inequality Index (GII). As
shown in Figure 2.1 and Table 2.2, we propose that nations and large urbanized areas develop, track andemploy in policy making three Capability indices specifically pertaining to people with disabilities, as
follows:
1. Index of Participation in Daily Life among People with Disabilities;
2. Index of Health and Wellness among People with Disabilities; and3. Index of Subjective Well-Being among People with Disabilities.
Each index would be based on appropriate component factors and weighted according to a scheme
developed by consensus among policy experts, lay people with disabilities and other stakeholders. An
on-going program of empirical research would measure the impact of improvements in accessibility on
desired progress in each index and inform policy directions accordingly (see Box 2.3).

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Box 2.3. Do capability indicators influence policy?
The Human Development Index is an easy-to-understand numerical measure made up of what mostpeople believe are the basic ingredients of human well-being: health, education, and income. The first Human
Development Index was presented in 1990. It has been an annual feature of every Human Development
Report since, ranking virtually every country in the world from number one (currently Iceland) to number
177 (currently Sierra Leone).
This composite index has become one of the most widely used indices of well-being around the worldand has succeeded in broadening the measurement and discussion of well-being beyond just income. In anumber of countries, the Human Development Index is now an official government statistic; its annual
publication has been found to inspire serious political discussion and renewed efforts, nationally andregionally, to improve lives.
The United States uses a modified version of HDI methodology to evaluate the development levels ofdifferent states, regions and population groups within the country. This version is called the American
Human Development Index (AHDI), and it uses data drawn from the Bureau of Census and other official
government sources. Using the AHDI, differences between populations and regions can be identified, and thewell-being of the general U.S. population can be studied. While statistics about high-income and low-income
populations were available prior to AHDI use, not as much was known about the general population.
In some cases, the HDI approach has focused on excluded groups, to understand the root causes andpersistent patterns of deprivation beyond national averages usually reported in international documents. The
Central and Eastern Europe Human Development Report of 2003 presented the first large scale household
survey of the Roma, with over 5 000 interviews and data comparable across five countries in Central Europe.
The data allowed the calculation of the HDI for Roma, the disaggregation of Millennium Development Goal
(MDG) indicators and the comparison with similar indicators for non-Roma populations. The report was used
as a reference by the World Bank and Open Society Institute initiative called “A Decade of Roma Inclusion”,
with the objective to meet the MDGs for Roma people. This case is not unique; in Chile, beyond the
publication of HDIs, a team of human development experts measured human development trends at thecommunal level, and calculated the HDI for the Mapuche populations to determine interethnic and intraethnic inequalities. According to a United Nations report, the analysis revealed insights on sub-national
circumstances, with a focus on indigenous populations, informing diagnostics and planning at the regional
level.

Triggering self-sustaining accessibility
Broadening and standardizing the way in which society thinks about and measures benefits will help
facilitate the adoption of higher standards of accessibility. But this is only the beginning of the story: fora deeper economic dynamic now comes into play. Economic theory and supporting evidence shows that
achieving a threshold rate of capital investment can set off a market dynamic called a “virtuous circle.”
Because new capital embodies the latest technology and design innovations, the more rapidly new capitalis added to, or integrated into a sector, the faster average productivity in that sector will grow and thefaster costs will decline. Moreover, the rate of technological progress is itself dependent on the rate ofcapital investment. The more quickly new capital is added to or integrated into the capital stock, thebetter the quality of that capital stock will be in terms of embedded technology and design. The virtuous
circle is illustrated in Figure 2.2.

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Figure 2.2. Triggering a virtuous circle of self-sustaining accessibility

An example of the virtuous circle specifically in relation to accessibility is the evolution ofaccessible urban buses in the United States. Prior to passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in
1991, level-change technology for wheelchair boarding was expensive and unreliable, adding some
15 percent to the price and running costs of a bus. Following the mandate for 100 percent accessible
buses within a specified period of time, the demand for better technology led to an on-going virtuous
circle of investment, research and development, more investment and so-on until today the addition ofbus accessibility represents less than a fraction of one-percent. Costs for curb cuts in urban pavements
have followed a similar path in North America and Europe.
Importantly, due to the work of investment experts such as Richard Donovan and others, thefinancial sector is awakening to the reality of sizeable “returns to disability” that stem in part from public
sector nudges to create markets and inspire corporate steps to satisfy related market demands.
The strategic message in the above is fourfold:
1.

The key to achieving sustainable accessibility is to trigger a virtuous circle of self-sustaining
investment in accessible technology and design;

2.

The key to triggering the virtuous circle is sufficient capital investment;

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3.

The key to sufficient capital investment is strong regulatory and court enforced mandates; and4.

The key to developing strong mandates is the recognition of benefits in the widest sense,
namely the framework presented in Figure 2.1.

Strong benefits and capability-driven mandates are needed to unlock a virtuous circle of investment
and research and development which in turn drives down the costs of accessibility to levels that permit
self-sustaining investment in accessible facilities and equipment. While there is evidence of this dynamic
beginning to take hold in some nations, it has not done so in many others.

Conclusion
This chapter (i) explains the motivation for articulating the benefits of accessibility; (ii) provides anarrative basis for articulating how accessibility affects economic and social life; and (iii) moves towards
a framework for quantifying the benefits of accessibility. While there remains technical research anddevelopment to be conducted in order to operationalize the framework depicted in Figure 2.1, eachcomponent of the framework has precedence in the application of Cost-Benefit Analysis and Capability
Theory, precedence that speaks to its feasibility.
Adoption of the framework as a narrative tool can take the form of reference to it in policy debates
and reports in order to provide perspective on questions of cost-benefit balancing.
Adoption of the framework as an analytical tool can include both the quantification andmonetization of those aspects for which there is enough existing data to make robust estimates ofbenefits, as well as qualitative assessments of those benefits which cannot yet be adequately measured
and assigned monetary-equivalent value. While different nations and organizations will need to movetoward quantification at their own pace, such adoption, with differing degrees of quantification, can help
keep the focus on the full spectrum of benefits of greater accessibility.

Note

1

Mobility may be viewed as a healthcare intervention that improves generates increased quality-adjusted
life-years, as indicated in Table 2.2.

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References
Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, As Amended. Title 42, chapter 126, U.S. Code.
Attorney General’s Department, Government of Australia, (1999), Regulation Impact Statement on Draft
Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport, Canberra,
Bayefsky R. (2015), “Dignity as a Value in Agency Cost-Benefit Analysis”, The Yale Law Journal,
http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/1732.Bayefsky.1782_u52fptmb.pdf.
Beyazit E. (2010), “Evaluating Social Justice in Transport: Lessons to be Learned from the Capability
Approach”, Transport Review, 15 November 2010.
Cevero R. (2011), Beyond Time Savings, The World Bank.
Council of Australian Governments (2007), COAG Regulatory Reform Plan. April 2007.
Council of Canadians with Disabilities v. Via Rail Canada Inc., [2007] S.C.J. No. 15.
Directive Establishing a General Framework for Equal Treatment in Employment and Occupation, EC
2000/78. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32000L0078
Donavan R., The Return on Disability Report, described at http://www.rod-group.com/rodreport/companies
Emens E. (2008), “Integrating Accommodation”, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 156(4).
Executive Order No 12866 of September 30, 1993. 58 FR 51735.
Executive Order No. 13,563, 3 C.F.R. 215 (2012).
European Commission (2010) Impact Assessment. [online] (Updated 26 Jan /2010).
http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/index_en.htm.

Available at

Goodwin, P.B. (1976), “Human Effort and the Value of Travel Time”, Journal of Transport Economics
and Policy, as in HDR Decision Economics for the US Department of Justice, (2008), Initial
Regulatory Impact Analysis of the Proposed Revised Regulations Implementing Titles II and III of
the ADA, Including Revised ADA Standards For Accessible Design: Final Report.
Lewis (1985), Special Purpose Passenger Transport: The Economics of Serving the Travel Needs ofHandicapped Persons.
New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development, Regulatory Impact Analysis Unit, Effective Markets
Branch (2007), Guidelines on the Regulatory Impact Analysis Requirements [online]. Available at:
http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentPage____26449.aspx.
Norman and Neubauer v Air Canada, Canadian Transportation Agency, File No. U3570-14/04-1.

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Sen A. (2009), The Idea of Justice, Belknap Harvard.
Sunstein, C. (2007), “Cost-Benefit Analysis without Analyzing Costs or Benefits: Reasonable
Accommodation, Balancing, and Stigmatic Harms”, University of Chicago Law and Economics
Olin Working Paper No. 325. March 2007.
United Nations (2006), The Concept of Reasonable Accommodation in Selected National Disability
Legislation,
United States Department of Transportation (2015), TIGER Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) Resource
Guide, Updated 3/27/15.
United States Department of Transportation (2014), Revised Departmental Guidance on Valuation ofTravel Time in Economic Analysis (Revision 2 – corrected), July 9, 2014
United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division (2004), Nondiscrimination on the Basis of
Disability in State and Local Government Services; Non-discrimination on the Basis of Disability
by Public Accommodations and in Commercial Facilities; Proposed Rule 28 CFR Parts 35 and 36.
69 FR 58768.

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Chapter 3
The economics of enhancing accessibility:
Estimating the benefits and costs of participation
Bridget R.D. Burdett
TDG Ltd, Hamilton, New ZealandStuart M. Locke
Department of Finance, University of Waikato Management School, Hamilton, New ZealandFrank Scrimgeour
Institute for Business Research, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

Inclusiveness affects the underlying thinking and consequential analysis of accessibility issues intransport. If the fundamental premise is that all people are equal and should be viewed as
stakeholders in matters of public policy then it not only reflects international treaties, such as the
Rights of the Child and the Rights of Persons with Disability, it encapsulates these and others in a
broader perspective of equality. To claim that inclusiveness in transport policy is a paradigm shift
may be an over statement, however, what seems self-evident in our discussion is not reflected inbest practice at this time. It is important that some measure of the particular beneficiaries ofinvestment in barrier-free transport is defined. We propose that the use of observable mobility aids,by persons making all manner of trips as pedestrians and public transport users, can be incorporated
into cost-benefit appraisal and to inform broader transport planning. The proportion of people usinga mobility aid in catchment populations can be estimated so that gaps can be defined between
current and desired levels of demonstrated inclusion in transport and especially accessible
infrastructure. This indicator is readily operational to estimate benefits and comparative costs oftrips not made. These methods ought to be refined to objectively assess accessibility in parallel withother objectives for transport.

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Introduction
In this chapter, we discuss how inclusiveness influences the underlying thinking and consequential
analysis of accessibility issues from a total community perspective. This is a significant advance inapproach to transportation issues and potentially a whole range of other public policy concerns. For the
purpose of this discussion, the focus is on transport. If the fundamental premise is that all people are
equal and should be viewed as stakeholders in matters of public policy then it not only reflectsinternational treaties, such as the Rights of the Child and the Rights of Persons with Disability, it
encapsulates these and others in a broader perspective of equality. To claim that inclusiveness intransport policy is a paradigm shift may be an over statement, however, what seems self-evident in thediscussion that follows is not reflected in best practice at this time. Through our discussion, we propose amore inclusive and readily operational approach. Making the goal of inclusion explicit is important sothat we can start to measure the gap between an inclusive streetscape, and the status quo, in which many
people are absent and unaccounted.
What do members of the public assume about new pedestrian and public transport infrastructure?
Implicitly they may assume the design conforms to principles of best practice. Constraints in the physicalenvironment, competing demands from road traffic, and compromises to meet constrained budgets
require making concessions, which reduce any prospect of universal best design. Potentially, someplanners may lack knowledge and understanding as to the nature of what is “best practice”.
Additionally, towns and cities across the world have a legacy of less than universally accessible
infrastructure, particularly in terms of their extensive networks of footpaths and road crossings. To
improve access so that more people can participate in our towns and cities, we need better ways topromote accessibility as an objective, so that new construction is more likely to be usable by as many
people as possible. It is of fundamental importance to fairly prioritise upgrades to legacy infrastructure.
Notwithstanding recommended paths forward towards inclusion, there are two dangers to bear mind.
First, policies to fix past failings are not the primary focus of inclusiveness and there is a danger that
retrofitting becomes the way forward. There is no issue that improving accessibility may be good but it is
not the beginning and the end of inclusiveness policy. Second, the unintended consequences are oftenmuch bigger than anticipated. In the mini case study below the examples are teased out further but
suffice it to say that improving mobility for older people in an area may create an aged persons enclave,with declining maintenance of property, falling school rolls, and a great opportunity for either gangs or
gentrification as a result of older people concentrating in this location.
Current context
In New Zealand, most nationally funded transport projects are prioritised according to three criteria:
strategic fit (whether or not the project supports government objectives for land transport); effectiveness(whether the project will address the problem it sets out to address); and an economic benefit/cost
appraisal. For better or worse, this assessment framework provides an objective approach for comparing
projects from different regions so that investment is prioritised toward continuous improvement for allroad users. These criteria support the ranking of dozens of projects.
Usually, travel timesaving and road safety (with estimates of ‘value of a statistical life’ and assumed
reductions in crash rate) form the majority of the monetised benefits. As a policy objective, accessibility(‘barrier-freedom’) is not typically valued as a standalone starting point for investment. Improvements toaccessibility are usually funded through discretionary budgets or as part of safety or efficiency works.
The benefits and costs of investment in barrier-free infrastructure, that is universally accessible, are notquantified. This may be because there is currently no accepted method to monetise the benefits ofaccessibility improvements. Budget fragmentation in respect of transport matters, interagency overlaps
and lack of carry forward of funds does create uniquely poor outcomes.

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An example of the struggle within transport economics to fairly compare access improvements
relates to New Zealand’s Economic Evaluation Manual (NZTA 2016). Transport policy analysts andpractitioners use this reference in appraising transport project benefits and costs for a consistent,
objectively comparable methodology. This example discusses the issue of community severance, whichhappens when the traffic function of a road (typically a major arterial road) is elevated above any ‘place’
function inherent in the neighbouring land use. Severance makes crossing the road difficult; thecommunity is ‘severed’ because it is not safe or convenient to participate in activities in segmented
sections of the area:“Any areas affected by severance shall be identified, described and, if appropriate,
mapped. The location of community facilities and the effects of the project on theaccessibility of these facilities, particularly for pedestrians and cyclists shall bereported. Travel time changes for cyclists and pedestrians should be included withother road user costs in the economic evaluation.
Main crossing points shall be marked and the numbers of crossing movements indicated.
In the case of projects, such as motorways, which create major barriers, theireffects on overall community structures shall be reported.. Where projects haveincorporated features to reduce community severance, the incremental costs andbenefits of these measures shall be reported. The benefits of reduced travel times,
particularly for pedestrians and cyclists, and crash savings, shall be quantified todetermine incremental BCRs of these factors.” (NZTA 2016, p364)
This excerpt highlights two important points:
1.

Issues such as accessibility and community severance are known to be related to transport;
professionals try to incorporate them into decision-making; and2.

Measures to evaluate fairly the impacts of community severance and accessibility are notcurrently available; they can only be ‘reported’ in a qualitative manner, in conjunction withconcrete analysis of more familiar indicators: in this case, monetised travel time and crashcosts.

Because of a lack of economic methodology and no ready indicators to make trade-offs explicit,
investment in accessibility and in particular pedestrian networks is prioritised based on ‘local knowledge’
using discretionary transport funds or as part of larger projects justified using economic appraisal foroutcomes associated with safety or efficiency. For example, when a new school opens a discussion
concerning road crossings within its catchment may occur at a meeting with improvements suggested.
Consideration of benefits for pedestrians within larger infrastructure projects (for example redesign of asignal-controlled intersection) progress with the scheme, according to the technical understanding ofindividual planners and designers involved.
At other times, the allocation of discretionary budgets for maintenance and minor works
incorporates unsolicited or prompted feedback from local communities. While these processes usually
result in incremental improvements to the overall network for all road users, there is no way ofmonitoring the investment’s true effectiveness for all people, let alone the particular benefit to people
who have a particular need for universally accessible environments, for example older persons, those
identifying with disability, young children, and people encumbered with luggage.
Comparably little data about the number and nature of people and their mobility are used in transport
project appraisal and investment decision-making, particularly when compared to the copious quantities
of data collected about motor-vehicle traffic itself. Many cities and countries hold large databases of

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traffic volume data for each road link in their networks. They build and maintain complex models that
use this data to predict traffic volume change for decades to come. Road traffic efficiency and safety
objectives can readily trump ‘accessibility’ objectives in the absence of data about beneficiaries of thisinvestment.
Despite best practice guidelines, the absence of data about people means that their needs cannot betransparently prioritised when trade-offs are made in new design. Furthermore, maintenanceimprovements that could result in accessibility improvements become ad-hoc, based on nebulous criteria.
For example, footpath reseals may be scheduled to link with timelines for water infrastructure upgrades;
the purpose of the footpath as a means for people to participate as pedestrians is not factored into any
prioritisation calculation, so this investment is not necessarily targeted where needs of people are
greatest. Consequently, outcomes of the process are that the social and health benefits to individuals andcommunities of accessible infrastructure are not explicitly considered. Invisible access problems, where
infrastructure is not used because it is not accessible, remain unaddressed.
To summarise we contend that accessibility is an important objective in transport but it is difficult tomeasure, so it is typically not measured. This may be one reason why investment in accessible
infrastructure for its own sake is relatively ad-hoc (Burdett, 2013) or justified using safety, forpedestrians and cyclists, etc., as the primary objective. The lack of effective, convenient and attributableways to measure transport investment in accessibility also leads to reliance on best-practice standards.
These act as a means to meet obligations under international conventions, such as the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (United Nations, 2006). Application of thesestandards usually results in access improvements for new infrastructure and systems, but they do not help
policy makers and other transport professionals prioritise areas of greatest need.
Approach
Measures of accessibility are essential to effectively prioritise universally accessible infrastructure.
Beneficiaries of universal design ought to be included through measurement of their presence or absence.
The purpose of this initial exploratory study is to suggest that people who use a visibly identifiablemobility aid can be counted as a proxy indicator of the potential and actual beneficiaries of investment inaccessible transport infrastructure. Coupling observation with more refined census data in communities
of interest will provide for more robust analyses.
There is no established and agreed way to even define beneficiaries of universal design, let alone
measure their presence or absence. Considering beneficiaries as synonymous with a person identifying as
having disability is common, which is a loose application of a widely used social model, defining
disability as ‘arising from the interaction of a person’s functional status with the physical, cultural, andpolicy environments.’
Many countries now use the ‘Washington Group Short Set’ questions to produce internationallycomparable data about disability and its variation within a population. These questions include forexample ‘Do you have difficulty seeing, even if wearing glasses?’ and ‘Do you have difficulty walking
or climbing steps?’ (Madans, Loeb & Altman, 2011; Washington Group on Disability Statistics, 2009).
Frye (2012) states that Census data such as the Washington Group Short Set responses are often too
broad to be useful as a driver of policy change, and in any case there is too much lag between datacollection and its publication for it to be a political lever. In some countries (including New Zealand),these data about disability are not disaggregated to anything less than national or regional level.
Importantly, for this chapter, lacking low-level spatial data about people and their diverse abilities meansthat local authorities who make transport investment decisions have no data at all about differences
within their population; they cannot invest in accessibility improvements that would benefit particulargroups with any confidence that the investment in that particular location is justified according to relativeneed.

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Despite difficulties defining and measuring disability, given that arguably everyone is a beneficiaryof universal design some of the time; that many factors influencing participation are invisible, such as
mental illness or hearing difficulty, for example; if an observational measurement method is going to be
used, then it must necessarily involve a proxy measure for ‘beneficiary of universal design’.
Almost by definition, people who use a mobility aid have more difficulty using transport as a meansfor participation than those who do not use any aid. Our previous research shows that there aredifferences for travel and in levels of participation by people who do and do not use mobility aids
(Burdett, 2014).
More recently, we surveyed 2 952 New Zealanders about mobility aid use; their perceptions and useof different transport modes, and their participation in everyday activities. Our sample was intentionallybiased towards people aged over 65 years (n = 1 562) and people identifying as having some disability(n = 2 256) so that we could instigate differences within these groups, and importantly, between themand younger people / those without disabilities. As well as asking about disability identity we included
the Washington Group Short Set of Questions to understand any correlation between mobility aid use
and general difficulty in everyday life. Figure 3.1 indicates responses to the types of disabilities
respondents face.
Figure 3.1. Types of difficulties mentioned by survey respondents

As expected due to intentionally biased sampling, the data in Figure 3.1 show typically much higher
proportions of people with stated difficulties than present in the New Zealand population. For example,
approximately 4% of New Zealanders have difficulty seeing, and 13% have some mobility difficulty(Statistics New Zealand, 2013). The statistical analysis of these data, not reported at length in thischapter, commences with conventional diagnostic checking, consideration of the distributional nature of
the data and use of various parametric and nonparametric analyses involving univariate and multivariate
methods. The data are available from the lead author on request.

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Some salient points coming from the survey are that the types of disabilities faced by men andwomen differ very little, there is not a large difference between regions and not surprisingly, they dodiffer with age. The type of activities, for which mobility is desired, varies in a statistically significant
way between, gender, region and age as does the type of transport used. In non-suburban areas in New
Zealand, such as rural communities, there is no public transport and recreational facilities are lessabundant.
The lack of universal inclusiveness is obvious, demonstrated by differences in participation between
people with and without disability. This is a major contribution of the survey: robust statistical analyses
confirmed what common sense might have conjected. Additionally, it leads to clarity of some of theeconomic issues involved, which have not surfaced previously in the public policy debate. As an
example, multivariate regression for the various forms of mobility assistance using the gender, disability
form, age, region etc. provides clear indications of what is statistically significant1.
Perhaps most usefully for the current discussion are links found between mobility aid use, and allmanner of difficulty in everyday life. Our data reveal that more than two thirds of people identifying withparticular need across all of the ‘Washington Group Short Set’ questions also report using a mobility aid
when travelling outside their home. That is, mobility aid use is not an indicator of mobility impairment
alone, but may also be a useful indicator of general difficulty. Our data is biased by a high proportion ofolder age groups, and therefore a higher than typical proportion of people who have difficulty walking(in particular), and this may be reflected in respondents reporting multiple difficulties - however, as avisible indicator of human diversity, mobility aid presence or absence among participating populations
could nonetheless be genuinely useful for professionals to understand whether or not environments(including transport systems) are inclusive in their design and operation. Figure 3.2 indicates responses
to the question ‘Do you use a mobility aid [of any kind]’ according to peoples’ stated difficulty ineveryday life.
There is a significant positive correlation found between mobility aid use, and some stated difficultywith everyday activity according to New Zealand’s adaptation of the Washington Group questions;r(2 952) = .32, p < .001. Interestingly however, a person who uses a mobility aid is no less likely to travel
at all on at least five days per week (χ 2 (1, N = 2 752) < .01, p = .999); therefore their presence orabsence at a particular location may be attributable to the relative accessibility of the transport
infrastructure and the place, than to any inherent lack of motivation for travel.

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Figure 3.2. Proportion of respondents with different difficulties who use a mobility aid

Case study
A recent package of accessibility improvements to pedestrian infrastructure in an area of Hamilton(NZ), a city of approximately 140 000 people, in an area known as Five Cross Roads provides a usefulcontext as a case study. The site is a suburban intersection within a low to medium-density residential
area. Within 100 m of the intersection of five approaches are dozens of shops, a medical centre, social
service offices, cafes and restaurants. Figure 3.3 depicts the location, including changes made to roadcrossings.

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Figure 3.3. Intersection (junction) detailing road crossing locations before (B; above)
and after (A) improvement works

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Our study, which is for demonstration purposes only of the counting approach, examines what
happens in terms of accessibility resulting from the new pedestrian infrastructure. Surveys of pedestrians
using this suburban intersection before and after improvements to road crossings at the site assist in
testing its usefulness. In particular, this involved counting people who use a mobility aid at theintersection, as a proxy indicator of the beneficiaries of investment in accessibility. The sample is small
and accordingly no real statistically significant conclusions can be drawn. However, the indicators are in
the anticipated direction.
Three primary research questions require answers:
1.

Do more people use the formal road crossings after upgrading of the crossing to be more
universally accessible?

2.

Are people who use a mobility aid more likely to use a formal road crossing?

3.

Do more people using mobility aids use the intersection post improvements?

Before the improvement works, the roundabout essentially provided one zebra crossing flush withthe surrounding road surface (on the southeastern approach only), and one refuge crossing point per
approach, within the splitter island that serves to provide deflection for on-road traffic entering andleaving the roundabout circle. Roundabouts are notoriously difficult for any pedestrians to cross,particularly without any more than splitter island refuge points (Schroeder, Rouphail & Hughes, 2008).
Table 3.1. Pedestrian traffic before and after infrastructure upgrade
BeforeApproach(Clockwise from
Peachgrove Road
North)

Crossing
type

After

Numberusing
crossing

Numbercrossing
informally

Refugeisland60 (1)

53 (1)

Refugeisland84 (0)325 (5)113 (5)45 (0)

39 (4)5 (0)

24 (1)

27 (0)

320(11)455 (6)

Crossing
type

Numberusing
crossing

Numbercrossing
informally

116 (4)23 (0)

91 (4)

314 (7)142 (8)13 (0)

49 (4)

21 (1)

48 (1)

59 (1)

446(21)

430 (9)Approach road

Peachgrove Road
North
Fifth Avenue

Pachgrove Road
South
Brooklyn Road
Boundary Road

Flush
zebra
crossing
RefugeislandRefugeislandTotal perapproach
Total overall

775 (17)

Raisedzebra
crossing
Refugeisland +signalised
crossing
Raisedzebra
crossing
RefugeislandRefugeisland876 (30)

Note: Numbers in brackets represent number of people using a mobility aid

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The improvements include two raised tables with zebra crossings, to provide safe and accessible
crossing points on Peachgrove Road north and south, as well as a signalised crossing northeast of theintersection on Fifth Avenue. Provision of tactile ground surface indicators for people with visual
impairment is in place on most crossings. No major changes were made to crossing points on Boundary
or Brooklyn Roads. These design decisions were made using discretionary budget in the absence of any
explicit analysis of the likely benefits for people of this investment.
Pedestrians crossing the road on each approach to the intersection were counted for four hours in
April 2014 before improvements were made, and for four hours in February 2015 after changes wereconstructed. Counts were conducted on a Wednesday in each case, from 8am – 10am, and 2pm-4pm.
Count data are summarised in Table 3.1, including the number of people crossing each road; whether or
not they used a formal crossing or crossed the road informally i.e. jaywalked and the number of peopleusing a mobility aid in each case.
Results were analysed to answer each of the research questions as follows. All statistical tests wereanalysed using Chi-squared tests of independence with 2x2 contingency tables and a 5% significancelevel.
1.

Did more people use the formal road crossings after crossings were made more universally
accessible?
Yes: before improvements were made, 320 out of 775 people (41%) used formal crossings. Afterthe improvements, 446 out of 876 (51%) used formal crossings. This change in proportion from
41% to 51% was statistically significant (Χ2 (1, N = 1 651) = 15.31, p <0.001).

2.

Were people who use a mobility aid more likely to use a formal road crossing?
Yes: of 47 people using mobility aids overall across both count sessions, 32 (68%) crossed at aformal crossing, with 15 crossing informally. Of 1 604 people without a mobility aid, 734 (46%)
crossed at a formal crossing. This difference was significant (Χ2 (1, N = 1 604) = 9.15, p = .002).

3. Did more people using mobility aids use the intersection after improvements were made?
Yes: 17 people using mobility aids were counted before improvements were made comparedwith 30 after, an increase of 76%. However, compared to the overall growth in people counted at
the intersection after improvements were made (an increase of 12%, from 758 to 846), thisincrease in the counted numbers of mobility aid users was not statistically significant (Χ2 (1, N =1604) = 2.25, p = .133)
The main advantage of using an indicator population such as mobility aid users is that planners canestimate the opportunity cost of trips not made. This is because a desirable or target proportion ofmobility aid use, based on analysis of catchment demographics, can be used to estimate the number ofpeople not counted. These differences in proportions of people using a mobility aid between different
locations are useful to infer gaps in accessibility, so long as mobility aid use in the catchment populations
are similar.
Data about mobility aid use in different geographic areas are not collected in New Zealand, but rates
can be estimated based on known rates of use according to age and gender profiles. Using this method(available from the authors on request), it is estimated that mobility aid use by people living in New
Zealand typically varies between 1% and 4% of any catchment population, with older populations
showing the highest rates. These data can then be compared to proportions of transport users observed‘on the street’ in different situations.

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The key learning that comes from this observation is that without data questions cannot be answered
and typically they do not get asked. Counting mobility aid users is only one method available to transport
planners to improve equity in prioritising new investment. It is useful because it is a more direct indicatorof participation than more technical measures of accessibility, or walkability, that combine various
details such as pavement quality (width, crossfall, smoothness etc.), aesthetic components (such as thepresence of greenery) and security measures (such as lighting). These measures, while useful to monitor
asset performance or maintenance requirements, provide no direct indication of the value of theinfrastructure for the intended beneficiaries.

Discussion
The results of this study show that counting people using the transport system, and including the
proportion who use mobility aids as a subset, can provide information about inequity of access,particularly when compared to underlying proportions of people living in a community of interest. Where
the proportion of people using a mobility aid is significantly different on different crossing points at anintersection such information can inform future investment for accessible infrastructure.
There are at least two further important aspects worthy of consideration:
1. Why did the person using a mobility aid cross the road, and2. If they crossed the road, then so what?
In the context of our mini case study we know more people using mobility aids did cross the roadonce an impediment of unsafe crossing opportunities were removed and they were placed on a more
equitable plane with other citizens. However, there is no apparent increase in their opportunities tojaywalk. Were the users of the crossing going shopping, attending medical appointments, socialising forcoffee with others, attending a card afternoon at the social club, or purchasing a flagon of wine to drink
in the park? In some instances, there are clear shadow prices, which are available as proxies in theestimation of value. If carers no longer need to go for shopping then their time-saving is of value in amarket where there are not enough carers. Social engagements keep the spirits up and may improve thequality of life and reduce the need for medication. Playing scrabble or cards may assist with reducing
loneliness and depression salon keep the mind a little sharper to postpone or ward off dementia. These
have value. Drinking to excess with buddies or by oneself has negative benefits.
Having crossed the road, access to shops and other venues may still be a challenge. Once in theshop, is it feasible for everyone to navigate freely along the aisle, between displays and select items froma shelf? Having crossed one road to visit the pharmacy is it possible to get across the next street should it
be necessary? There is little advantage in improving accessibility at one juncture if it not adequate toserve the needs of those in search of particular products or services.
If we ease access in one area, do we attract people who need accessibility to the area? When newschools are built or have excellent reputations people move into the zone, or rent a mailbox in zone, inorder to be able to enrol their children at this top school. So we might expect if we build one accessiblearea in a city then we create a park for people with disabilities. Over time does this become a ghetto, or
are the benefits to all people of more inclusive design enough to attract a broad spectrum of residents?
One of the consequences of selective interventions is that people move to take advantage of short-term
opportunities but the longer-term produces quite adverse outcomes.
What of those who did not cross the road?
A crossing suitable for all is desirable but there are many who cannot get to the crossing. Most
obviously, they may not know of its existence and so the lack of signals has an economic cost. Physicalbarriers are likely to imprison people with disabilities and reduce their social engagement. If footpaths

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are not suitable and constructed appropriately then some people cannot get to the crossing. If groundfloor dwellings have steps for access and egress then these are as good as iron bars around the dwellingfor many.
As most dwellings in city regions now have access to ultrafast broadband, and 97% of the country iscovered by 3G or 4G mobile it is possible that shopping online, chatting online, medical prescriptions
online, kindle for books, and interactive exercise games on UHD television monitors means theprisoners/ persons with disability no longer need to leave the property. It may result in recluses who live
and die alone.
The majority of dwellings and businesses carry numbers on the front, e.g. 22 so we know thebungalow is 22 Arthur St. Of course, this assumes we know it is Arthur St and can read the 22. In New
Zealand, domestic pets are chipped and livestock similarly have an identifying signal under a scheme
called NAIT. Traceability is important for agriculture produce and government takes this seriously.
School education is compulsory through to age 17 and at the end of this most people can read and count.
For those with disabilities do we consider the use of numbering properties with identifying chips?
Compulsory identification of property addresses in an appropriate form may well be another componentof future inclusive communities.
As noted above there are sources of data such as access to internet. However, breakdown ofdemographic information to small units is not general available. In the case of Five Cross Roads, thenumber of people identifying as having disability is not readily available to those who see their
responsibilities as encompassing promoting accessibility.

The economic model
The conceptual analysis of “inclusive” development requires translating into empirical analysis if it
is to be useful in informing public investment decisions. This analysis starts using traditional approaches
to benefit cost analysis adjusted to incorporate adequately non-market values as presented in standard
text such as Freeman (1993).
To estimate the economic net benefit of the intersection upgrade considered above we estimate thevalue of additional trips undertaken post the investment relative to the number prior to the investment.
Here we refer to trips by people with disabilities, as estimated using our proxy measure of mobility aid
use.
The Net Present value of the investment is ∑ (Net Benefits)/ (1+r)n where r is the discount rate andn = the number of time periods considered.
The gross benefits are estimated as the sum of [(additional trips by people using mobility aids * thevalue per trip) + (additional trips by people not using mobility aids * the value per trip)]
The net benefits are the gross benefits less both the initial capital investment costs and additional
annual costs.
Estimation of the gross benefits requires careful attention to the number of trips and who takes them.
For this chapter, estimating the number of annual trips is for two categories of people – those who do anddo not use a mobility aid. More sophisticated analyses for larger projects would estimate trip numbers for
multiple categories of people, including for example those encumbered with luggage or caring for smallchildren; those with difficulties that are not visible, such as deafness or mental illness; and those people
who always travel with a carer or assistant.
Given that trip numbers are estimated by surveys of people movements for a limited number ofhours in a day or week it is important to be careful in the translation of trips in a 4 hour window to annual
data which incorporates weekend and week days in all seasons of the year. The specific value for the

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trips depends on who is taking the trip and for what purpose. Trips will have different values pertaining
to their purpose such as work or education; meeting basic needs as in shopping or visiting medical
facilities or for other purposes such as travel for leisure and recreational purposes. Estimates of thesevalues are achievable through undertaking choice experiments such as those made popular by Hensher etal (2012). Given no choice modelling this chapter drew on earlier approaches to estimating benefits as
described and utilised by Hufschmidt et al. (1983) that provided mechanisms for benefit estimation basedon costs associated with alternative mechanisms for achieving the benefits.
For the Five Cross Roads case benefits are estimated conservatively as being NZD 10 per trip (aminimal taxi fare) for people who use a mobility aid. For people without a mobility aid the benefit was
assumed to be only 20% of that given they are more likely to have other opportunities for travel. The
benefits for people with mobility aids are expected to grow at 1% per annum given projected
demographic change while benefits for people without were held constant.
For the Five Cross Roads case, the investment is assumed to have resulted in extra trips. An estimateof the initial investment is NZD 400 000 and this analysis assumes an additional NZD 20 000 per annumof maintenance costs beyond what would have occurred in its absence.
These assumptions form the basis of reporting the estimated benefits in Table 3.2.
Table 3.2. Preliminary estimates of benefits from Five Cross Roads investment
Increase in person with mobility aids trips per year
Increase in person without mobility aids trips per year
Increase in trips by people with mobility aids
Increase in trips by people without mobility aids
NPV of investment
IRR of investment

147%
12%
8 475
62 856NZD 1.27 M
48%

Sensitivity analysis
Clearly, the results are very sensitive to assumptions. It is feasible to utilise a range of estimates for
key variables such as estimated number of trips, estimated value of trips, interest rates, and costs.
The purpose of this example is to assert it is feasible to produce economic estimates that areplausible and that can be refined as further data are collected and analysis undertaken.

Conclusions
As accessibility (barrier-freedom) is adopted as an important policy objective in transport, we need ameans to estimate the gap between what is currently provided, and what we want the transport system tolook like. To demonstrate inclusion, we need to start with an understanding of who we are not including
and to what extent this is attributable to investment in more or different transport infrastructures.
Central to this chapter is the issue of awareness of accessibility among professionals who plan forand design our built environments. This includes new infrastructure, but importantly it also includes theextensive upgrades required to bring our towns and cities up to universally accessible standards. As wellas site-specific implications, data about people who use mobility aids generally can help to improveunderstanding of accessibility among transport industry practitioners. The accessibility of different typesof crossings is measurable according to actual use, and differences in footpath use and are then comparedbased on factors such as path width, grade, crossfall and quality.
Counting users of mobility aids as a subset of all users of transport provides a means to make links
between transport outcomes, social wellbeing and public health. Central to its uptake and effectiveness is

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70 – 3. THE ECONOMICS OF ENHANCING ACCESSIBILITY: ESTIMATING THE BENEFITS AND COSTS OF PARTICIPATIONa high-level directive, so that the transport industry begins to measure accessibility as part of its decision
making process. Without indicators of accessibility in transport, social and health objectives relating toactive and independent participation have no means of being realised. As noted by Rickert (2005), “Therecent emphasis on inclusive transport occupies an intersection between the interests of urban
infrastructure workers and social development workers. These two groups understandably look at
indicators and performance measures from different perspectives.” (p.13). Currently in New Zealand,
government priorities for transport are dominated by traffic efficiency and general road safety, which isitself biased towards car crashes because of inherent under-reporting rates of incidents involving
pedestrians. The importance of accessibility for non-transport outcomes (aside from economic
development) is largely ignored.
The proxy measure of people who use mobility aids is an indicator of relative accessibility, and not ameans of capturing all potential beneficiaries of best-practice transport systems and infrastructure.
Counting mobility aid users to infer costs of trips not made provides a method to link transport and social
objectives at a high level. It also enables universal design decisions to be prioritised with an objective
assessment of relative costs and benefits. The benefits of universal design are relevant for all people.
These outcomes are becoming increasingly evident with population ageing. The number of New
Zealanders aged over 65 years was 12% in 2006 and is projected to increase to 21% by 2031. This meansthat users of mobility aids will increase as a proportion of all New Zealanders.
As well as providing information for road controlling authorities and private interests at particularlocations, walking data as a whole can build to provide a detailed picture about variation in access to thetransport system. Given that transport exists to support peoples’ active participation in life, this data haspotential to provide a strong link between transport objectives, and social and economic outcomes.
It is important that planners, policy makers, investment managers and disability advocates invest
more effort in refining economic valuation models that can enhance the evidence gained from survey
data concerning individual travel choices.
Implications for transport planning and practice in New Zealand
Our findings show that counting mobility aid users is an authentic and practical way to build
economic models to prioritise accessible transport. It is recommended that while the industry continues
to advance ‘best practice’ in terms of accessible built environments, issues of inclusive access for all
people should be tackled through cross-sector initiatives at local, regional and national levels.
Involvement by health, social service, transport and non-government sectors (including community
groups and advocates) is encouraged, to deliver real change so that every New Zealander can live ameaningful life.
The model detail could be easily and readily incorporated into process manuals and software New
Zealand transportation professionals use to appraise transport project benefits and costs. However, thecentral issue is not whether the model could be used, but how to foster a cultural shift within thetransportation and other sectors so that the information is sought and the right questions asked. Specificrecommendations to build this economic model and its premises into local, regional and national
professional transportation practice are as follows.
Transport funding in New Zealand is prioritised based on ‘strategic fit’ which links funding activity
classes with government priorities for transport. The current government priorities for ‘high strategic fit’
are based on reducing congestion to support economic development directly, and reducing the incidence
and severity of crashes. This research demonstrates that at a national level, there are economic benefits
linked to healthy participation, supported by accessible transportation networks. An ability todemonstrate high ‘strategic fit’ supporting investment across different ministerial portfolios is a highlevel recommendation. In this way, a transport activity class supporting investment in accessible

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transport could be justified with high health strategic fit. Therefore, this work can be used to bridge
different sectors, particularly where the outcome benefit (for example, health and social development) is
in a different sector from that investing (for example, transport).
At a regional level, evidence about inequity of participation could be used to inform Regional Land
Transport Plans, and as a tool in development of Regional Public Transport Plans to identify areas ofrelative disadvantage. The model could be adapted to provide regional indicators of participation andabsence of people from society. With refining, the model could be used in a predictive way so thatchanges to population structures over time (most urgently with issues of ageing populations) can beincorporated and accessible transport funding prioritised.
Locally, City and District authorities can use these findings to investigate inequity within their own
communities according to community demographics. It is recommended that City and District Councils
work with local disability sector representatives (and their own Community Development teams) in the
short-term to provide their own local data about areas of greatest need. It is also recommended that street
accessibility audits be used to prioritise maintenance spending to remove built environment barriers.
Trained auditors can identify details such as kerb cut locations and suitability, and footpath conditions
compared to best practice, and then provide councils with a prioritised list for routine improvements.
Over time, the importance of accessibility as a policy objective in transport may grow such thatspecific training is warranted. In road safety, for example, we have extensive training courses andseparate groups within our national agencies developing road safety-specific policy. This “Safe System”
approach could be readily adapted to address accessibility, where transport professionals could workwith health, community and social sectors to improve participation outcomes. Clearly this level ofinvestment would require changing political approaches. However, the ageing population and diversityof access to a traditional independent motor vehicle-based transportation may necessitate such changes tothinking in coming years.
Limitations and unintended consequences
The survey data reveal taxis are a preferred form of transport for those with disabilities. The
provision of taxis promotes accessibility to shopping, employment, accessing community and healthservices and many more components of life. While this may appear desirable, it may lower the degree of
exercise obtained. If taxis are not available to travel to a community centre for recreational activities(ranging from wheelchair basketball to book clubs), those conditioned to taxi use may just choose not toparticipate.
The unintended consequences of public policy are plentiful when it comes to accessibility.
Economists often refer to Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard as two forms of market failure typicallyresulting from public policy. Two examples of unintended outcomes provide illustrations. For several
years there has been support for a programme of expanding the use of internet facilities by the aged,
known in New Zealand as Senior Net. This encourages emailing, online banking, online shopping, social
media, and even self-diagnosis of medical conditions. The unintended consequence is promotion ofhouse boundedness and less exercise, contributing towards increased prevalence of obesity andconditions such as diabetes.
A second example is the greater availability and use of mobility scooters. As kerbs are improved,
more mobility scooters use the footpaths, especially around shopping centres. Scooters and pedestrians
are not necessarily highly compatible and definitely, the synergy effect with teenagers on skateboards is
not apparent.
The main limitations of this approach are data collection costs, and meaningful interpretation offindings. Manual pedestrian counts are relatively expensive compared to not collecting any data.
However, the data presented in this chapter shows that there is benefit from even a one-off count of four

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hours at a site of interest. Compared to the investment in data about motorised traffic, the cost is
relatively low. Interpretation of this data relies on understanding of community demographics. This
information is not always collected as part of transportation assessments, so it requires a new approach.
The big limitation is mindset and associated capacity building among professionals as well as
advocates for individual groups of need. The physical environment and social environment are notseparate spaces. To move forward professionals need to embrace the social outcomes of inclusiveness,diversity and sustainability. Engineers’ participation is pivotal to building an inclusive society. Can they
step up to the challenge, or do they necessarily need more enforcement of specific pieces of legislation ora new level of social planner to supervise them?
Advocates for individuals with particular needs have long approached issues of inclusiveness as abasic human right. While this is understandable, the problem is perhaps best addressed by working in
genuine collaboration with the professionals who do their utmost to build a better world. Mutual
understanding between advocates and professionals is essential, so that engineers and planners have amandate to ask different questions and seek different data; and so that advocates can build effective
relationships with those whose assistance they seek.

Note

1

The initial study showed that regional differences between bus and train use were statisticallysignificant and taxis while uniformly popular were less used where buses were available.

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References
Burdett, B. (2014), “Measuring accessible journeys: a tool to enable participation”, Proceedings of theInstitution of Civil Engineers – Municipal Engineer, 168(2), 125-132
Freeman, A.M.I. (1993), The Measurement of Environmental and Resource Values: Theory andMethods. Washington DC: Resources for the Future
Frye, A. (2012), “Wrong Questions, Wrong Answers: The Statistical Barrier to Accessibility”. Paper
presented at the International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled
Persons (TRANSED 2012), Delhi, India, 17 - 21 September 2012
Hensher, D., Rose, J. M., and Beck, M. J. (2012), “Are there specific design elements of choice
experiments and types of people that influence choice response certainty?”, Journal of Choice
Modelling, 5(1), 77–97.
Hufschmidt, M., James, D., Meister, A., Bower, B. T., & Dixon, J. A. (1983), Environment, Natural
Systems and Development: An Economic Valuation Guide. John Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore.
Madans, J. H., Loeb, M. E., & Altman, B. M. (2011), “Measuring disability and monitoring the UN
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: the work of the Washington Group on
Disability Statistics”,BMC public health, 11(Suppl 4), S4.
NZ Transport Agency (2016), Economic Evaluation Manual First Edition: Amendment 1 Wellington:
New Zealand.
Rickert (2005), “Transport for All: What Should We Measure?” Access Exchange International: 2005,
http://globalride-sf.org/pdf/what_should_we_measure.pdf
Schroeder, B. J., Rouphail, N. M., & Hughes, R. G. (2008), “Toward Roundabout Accessibility—
Exploring the Operational Impact of Pedestrian Signalization Options at Modern Roundabouts”,
Journal of Transportation Engineering, 134(6), 262-271.
Statistics New Zealand (2013), “Household Disability Survey – Impairment Rate (detailed) by age groupand sex: 2013” [Data file]. Retrieved from Disability Survey: 2013, www.stats.govt.nz
United Nations, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, accessed 8 January 2016 fromhttp://www.un.org/disabilities/convention/conventionfull.shtml

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Chapter 4
Economic benefits of improved accessibility to transport systems and the roleof transport in fostering tourism for all

Markus Rebstock
University of Applied Sciences, Transport and Spatial Planning Institute, Erfurt, Germany
Accessibility is one of the key aspects of current transport planning, especially in reliance to public
transport and pedestrian traffic facilities. This chapter deals with this subject by outlining which areor could be the benefits of improved accessibility to the transport system with a special focus on
economic benefits and the tourism sector. Therefore selected existing studies will be analysed.
Besides the legal background and social aspects of accessibility related to the transport sector will
be covered.
The first part of the chapter deals with the legal background and social aspects of accessibility in thetransport sector. It shows that nowadays in many countries accessibility of transport systems is not a
voluntary task but a task bound by law and that an accessible environment is not only essential for
people with disabilities and necessary for up to 40 % of the population but also a matter of comfort
for all users.
The second part outlines which are or could be the economic benefits of improved accessibility to
the transport system. Two studies from Norway used the stated preference method to monetise andprioritise different universal design measures. In general this method seems to work also as a tool
for analysing economic benefits of accessibility measures. Nevertheless the results of these studies
have to be interpreted with extremely caution in order to avoid discrimination.
The third part deals with the economic impact of accessible tourism using the example of Europe.
The inducible impact of accessible tourism on the transport sector as well as the relevance ofpassenger transportation for accessible tourism is elaborated. All in all accessible tourism produces
a huge economic impact on the tourism sector and beyond, and by improving accessibility in the
future a significant raise of economic benefits is possible. In general traffic is precondition for
tourism. Besides tourists spend a significant part of their travel expenses for the journey to thedestination and back and for local transportation. This makes it clear that accessible transportsystems will directly benefit from an increasing accessible tourism market.

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Introduction
Accessibility is one of the key aspects of current transport planning, especially in reliance to public
transport and pedestrian traffic facilities. This chapter deals with this subject by outlining which are or
could be the benefits of improved accessibility to the transport system with a special focus on economic
benefits and the tourism sector. Therefore selected existing studies have been analysed. Besides, the legal
background and social aspects of accessibility related to the transport sector have been covered.
Legal background of accessibility related to the transport sector
First of all it has to be noticed that in general “it is difficult to separate out the proportion of costs
associated with the “accessible” features and to do this would be suspect, if only because defining
exactly what is an accessible feature needed by disabled users is often difficult. Much that is done tomeet the requirements of disabled people is of benefit to all passengers. (For example low-floor buses arenecessary for wheelchair-users and at the same time reduce the boarding time and the alighting accidents,
which is a clear benefit of this accessibility measure for all passengers as well as for the transportcompany and for the society as a whole.) It can be argued that since the ability of disabled people to use
public transport is now (…) accepted as a right, attempting to apportion costs to them would be as
irrelevant as attempting to apportion costs between, say, male and female transport users.” (European
Conference of Ministers of Transport, 2004)
Based on this it has to be stated that a full and effective participation and inclusion in society by all
persons with disabilities is a human right, not only but especially for the nations having signed andratified the “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” (CRPD). To enable persons withdisabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life accessible transportation plays
an important role. Hence accessibility is one of the general principles of the CRPD. Therefore the CRPD
declares that “States Parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure to persons with disabilities access,on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment, to transportation, to information andcommunications, including information and communications technologies and systems, and to otherfacilities and services open or provided to the public, both in urban and in rural areas. [In detail the
CRPD demands the] (…) identification and elimination of obstacles and barriers to accessibility
especially to buildings, roads, transportation and other indoor and outdoor facilities, including schools,
housing, medical facilities and workplaces. (…) [Besides the States Parties have] to ensure personal
mobility with the greatest possible independence for persons with disabilities.” (United Nations, 2006)
In addition to the CRPD the national states usually have a complementary legislation for people withdisabilities regulating also the general provisions for accessibility. For example in Germany a Disability
Equalisation Act regulates that public paths, open spaces and streets as well as transport facilities andmeans of transportation open to the public have to be designed in an accessible way (BGG, 2002). Also
the European Union has proposed at present an “European Accessibility Act, which will set common
accessibility requirements for certain key products and services that will help people with disabilities at
EU level to participate fully in society.” (European Commission - DG Employment, Social Affairs &Inclusion, 2015) Amongst others the Act includes air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport
services including the built environment used by clients of passenger transport services as well as theenvironment that is managed by service providers and by infrastructure operators.
Notwithstanding that all these laws to some extent include reservations of decision regarding costs(for details see Federing and Lewis, 2016), it has to be kept in mind that in most nations the discussion
about economic effects of improved accessibility to transport systems cannot be a question of designing asystem accessible or non-accessible, because they have to be designed accessible by law anyway. The
pending question is in fact how to design the several transport elements with their locally specificcharacteristics in detail. In this context economic conditions of course play an important role for example

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in the context of Cost-Benefits-Analyses (CBA) for investment decisions in reliance to time and financial
limits.
Social aspects of accessibility
As mentioned above on the one hand it is not easy to appoint whether a measure is of benefit only toa specific group of passengers or to all passengers. On the other hand nowadays it is well-recognised thatan accessible environment is essential for about 10% of the population and necessary for about 20 to40%. And last but not least accessible environments are comfortable for all (Rebstock, 2011), see Figure
4.4.
Figure 4.4. Accessible environments are comfortable for all

Source: Design for All Foundation (2016), Design
http://designforall.org/design.php, accessed 09 January 2016

for

All

is

designtailored

to

human

diversity,

The 10% of the society with indispensability of an accessible environment are the so called people
with disabilities. But of course this group is not homogeny and the individual abilities and limitations ofpeople with disabilities vary in reliance to the built environment. Nevertheless this group can be
specified as follows (Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung, 2000):•

People with locomotion limitations (e. g. limp, stand or grasp limits)•

People with sensory limitations (e.g. blindness, deafness, visual impairment)•

People with speech limitations•

People with cognitive limitations•

People with mental limitations

The size of the group with necessity of an accessible environment varies from 20 up to 40% of thesociety (Becker et al., 2007). This includes amongst others people with temporary or age-related
mobility-restrictions, pregnant women and people with buggies or dogs. Temporary restrictions occur

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e.g. because of heavy respectively lots of luggage or accident-related limits (Rebstock, 2011). From agerelated restrictions especially small children and elderly people are affected.
In the context of age-related restrictions of elderly people the so-called demographic change has tobe taken into account, because it will have a high influence on the future development of societies inmany countries. In reliance to the world's population it is expected that the proportion of people over 60
years will double between 2000 and 2050 from about 11% to 22% and the absolute number will increase
from 605 million to 2 billion (Frye, 2015). In Europe for example an absolute shrinkage of the general
population is anticipated, while the proportion of older people will increase (Leibniz-Gemeinschaft e.V.,
2007). Rates of negative growth will vary considerably across the European Union (EU). Not all of thecountries in Europe expect an absolute shrinkage of the population. For example, in the United Kingdom,
Ireland, Iceland, France and Portugal as well as in the Scandinavian states population numbers are
predicted to remain stable or increase until 2050. By contrast, the transition countries in Central Europe
will experience population shrinkage without exception (Gans and Leibert, 2007). But all nation states’
populations will ‘age’, and this means that across the EU the median age will increase notably in the firsthalf of this century. By 2050, about half of the European Union’s citizens will be older than 50(Aschemeier, 2007). Of particular note is that the proportion of those aged 80 and over is predicted toincrease some 180% between 2005 and 2050, and growth of the 65-79 age group is expected to be 44%
in the same period (Commission of the European Communities, 2005). Figure 4.5 shows the proportionof the population that is elderly (65+) in the EU25 member states for the years 2005 and 2050. While theproportion of elderly people will rise in all countries, it will vary and is predicted to range between 36%
in Spain and 22% in Luxembourg.
Figure 4.5. Section of the elderly population in the EU25 2005 and 2050 in %Source: Data: Dangschat, J.S. et al. (eds.) (2007), Mobilität und Verkehr im demografischen Wandel, Mobilität mit Zukunft,
1/2007, VCÖ, Wien, p.18

In measuring benefits of future accessibility developments in the field of passenger transport andmobility, a detailed understanding of the demographic trends is crucial; changes in the age structure areof particular importance in relation to the nature, means and timing of transport activities(Forschungsgesellschaft für Straßen- und Verkehrswesen e. V. - Arbeitsgruppe Verkehrsplanung, 2006).
Several studies have shown that elderly persons “are more often immobile in the sense of not leaving thehouse on a given day, make fewer trips on days they go out, use non-car transport modes more

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frequently, and travel over shorter distances than do younger cohorts (…). They also tend to travel lessoutside peak hours or at night.” (Schwanen and Páez, 2010) Besides for the elderly accessibility of
specific sources and objectives like medical institutions, public authorities, retail stores, municipal
centers, churches and senior citizens' residential estates get more important (Hamann, 2006).
Nevertheless it has also to be noted that elderly persons are not a homogenous population group. For
example “lifestyle (e.g. working, semi-retired, housing, hobbies, etc.) and the socio-demographic
characteristics (e.g. gender, marital status, ethnicity, driver license possession, etc.) of the old are varied.”(Mercado, Páez and Newbold, 2010) In relation to this, mobility can be viewed in general as possessing
five significant elements (Metz, 2000):
1.

Travel to achieve access to desired people and places. (…)

2.

Psychological benefits of movement – of “getting out and about”. (…)

3.

Exercise benefits. (…)

4.

Involvement in the local community yielding benefits from informal local support networks.
(…)

5.

Potential travel – knowing that a trip could be made even if not actually undertaken.

In order to realise many opportunities for older people to participate fully in society, strategies need
to be cognisant of the need to preserve individual mobility. If the ability to live autonomously andindependently and to participate in outside activities is lost, a vicious circle of immobility can ensue: animportant stimulus for elderly to stay active is lost, and this in turn leads to passiveness and loss ofabilities, which can result in further isolation and passiveness, see Figure 4.6. As Shoval et al. makeclear, “out-of-home mobility is critical to numerous aspects of elderly people’s quality of life.” (Shoval
et al., 2010)

Figure 4.6. Vicious circle of immobility
loss ofquality of life

less activities
outsideimpairment
to healthreduction of simuli
to remain activ

passivenessand isolation

Source: Haindl, G. and R. Risser (2007), “Mobilität und Lebensqualität älterer Menschen”, Verkehrszeichen, Vol. 23, No. 3,
p.14

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Despite the common trend of longer-lasting health among older people, the increase (in absolute andpercentage terms) in the elderly population will likely result in higher rates of personal mobility
impairment (Kasper, 2005). The successful repression of so-called diseases of civilization will lead tohigher incidences of chronically-degenerative illnesses (Münz, 2005), and even with comparative good
health ageing can result in physical and mental insecurities (Kasper, 2005). There is “a strong correlation
between age and disability, or loss of mobility.” (Frye, 2015) For example “the number of citizens withdisabilities and/or functional limitations will increase significantly with the ageing of the European
Union's population. Taking into account demographic ageing, it is expected that in 2020 approximately
120 million persons in the European Union will have multiple and/or minor disabilities.” (European
Commission, 2015) In principal age-related physical restrictions are partially comparable with those ofpeople with disabilities. The only difference is that for physically and mentally healthy older people
these restrictions generally come into effect over time (Appel, 2007). For example in Germany 7.5
million people were registered as “severely disabled” (2013), which amounts to a proportion of 9.4% of
the German population. Three-fourth of them were 55 years or older and one-third were 75 years or older(Statistisches Bundesamt, 2014). As such, transport systems have in principle to be accessible to a wide
range of potential passengers in varying states of health and personal mobility, if a high amount ofelderly people are not to be excluded from public life (Hettrich and Herzog, 2007). So it can be pointed
out that accessibility is not only a question of inclusion and equal treatment of people with disabilities
but also a matter of social and health policies for the elderly. Even the demographic change will increase
the need of accessible transport systems in order to avoid immobility and a raise of medical and carecosts of the future elderly. Moreover the growing proportion of elderly people is also an importanteconomic issue especially related to the tourism sector (see corresponding section).
Nevertheless it has to be kept in mind that with respect to the heterogenic group of the elderly as
mentioned above accessibility in terms of barrier-freedom is only one of the quality features of an agefriendly transport system (see Table 4.3).

Table 4.3. Quality features of an age-friendly transport system
System quality

Explanation

Affordable

Use of the transport and mobility system should be possible within older people’s
financial means.

Available

The transport and mobility system should exist in a way that older people can use it.

Barrier free

The system’s facilities should be usable by disabled persons without any specificdifficulty and without assistance from third persons. They should as such be designed totake into account the physical, sensory and cognitive impairments more likely to beexperienced by older people.

Comfortable

The transport and mobility system should be designed or adapted to ensure that older
people can use it without experiencing undue discomfort, pain, stress or anxiety.

Comprehensible

Information about the transport and mobility system should be communicated in waysthat make it easy for older people to understand.

Efficient

It should be possible to travel to the required destination within a reasonable amount oftime.

Friendly

The transport and mobility system should be approachable for older people. Where
applicable staff should be available in a number of ways (phone, face to face) and should
be aware of older people’s particular needs.

Reliable

The transport and mobility system should perform as advertised, allowing for an elementof unpredictability caused by unforeseen events, e.g. by extreme weather.

Safe

The transport and mobility system should not be dangerous for older people, with specificneeds, to use. They should not feel unsafe while using it.

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The transport and mobility system should be dependable and should not present
unnecessary risks to older people. They should feel confident that they are not at risk
when using it.

Transparent

Older people should be aware of the existence of the transport and mobility options
available to them, and understand how to use them.

Complementary

The transport and mobility system should be supported by policies capable of promoting
accessibility for older people by means other than personal transport, e.g. internet
access, mobile services.

81

Source: Berding, J. et al. (2015), “Policies for transport and mobility in an ageing society: An evaluation of current practice inEurope and beyond”, in Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (ed.), Ageing and Safe Mobilitiy: Papers, Bergisch Gladbach, p.4

Last but not least it has to be highlighted that in most cases accessibility measures have a usefuleffect on all users, because the comfort of the system increases, respectively the system quality will
increase as well. As mentioned above a low-floor bus is necessary for wheelchair-users and reduces theboarding time and the alighting accidents, but in addition these types of busses are also more comfortable
for all users, because it is easier and saver to board without steps at the entrance. This is only one
example; there are many other measures for people with disabilities which also provide high overallsocioeconomic benefits. Nowadays many accessibility projects have already internalised this andtherefore are based on a more broadly approach (see Table 4.3), like design for all, inclusive design oruniversal design concepts (Rebstock, 2011).
Notwithstanding the above, of course also some more specific measures without (or at worst withnegative) effects on other users exist. Nevertheless this type of measures also has to get off the groundfor equalisation purposes, but maybe compromises have to be made. In this context and related tomeasures for a specific disability it has in general to be ensured not to build up a new barrier for otherusers (Leidner, Neumann and Rebstock, 2006).

Studies analysing the economic benefit of accessibility measures in the transport sector
First of all it has to be noted that not many studies exist, which investigate the economic benefit ofaccessibility measures in the transport sector. In general there is a lack of evaluation of accessibility
interventions, “which makes it difficult to draw conclusions regarding their impact and success, toestablish whether resources used in this field are effective and to implement changes to improve projectdelivery in the future.” (Berding et al., 2015) Nevertheless during the last years a few efforts have been
undertaken to identify economic benefits of improving accessibility of the transport systems. The
following analysis raises no claim to completeness.
One example from UK analysing several railway stations after improving their accessibility showsthat 1% of all station users are customers with disabilities and another 5% are passengers who aretemporarily encumbered, for example because of taking a buggy or heavy luggage with them. These
values are surprising low in reliance to the remarks made in the previous chapter, but this could also be
an indicator for low rates of use of public transport in the UK by people with mobility restrictions ingeneral. Nevertheless about 10% of the passengers with disabilities have increased the number of trips
after improving the accessibility, whereby one third of the wheelchair users, approximately a fifth ofpassengers with hearing impairment, and 15% with mobility impairment increased their use of the
improved stations. All in all the study states an economic benefit, with benefits overall exceeding costs
by 2.4:1 over a 60-year appraisal period, although the values differ from station to station (Steer Davies
Gleave, 2015; for comprehensive analysis see Chapter 5).
As another example a Norwegian study analysed the passengers’ valuation of universal design
measures in public transport. At first the study stated that benefits arising from measures to improveaccessibility for passengers with disabilities are not limited to these groups but provide benefits and ease

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of use for all passengers as mentioned in the previous chapter. So the study focused upon the impact ofaccessibility measures in public transport on all passengers as well as on passengers with disabilities.
Based on these measures passenger benefits were quantified and monetised. Therefore a full scale statedpreference survey among passengers has been undertaken (Fearnley et al., 2009). This “stated preference
method” refers “to a family of techniques which use individual respondents' statements about theirpreferences in a set of transport options to estimate utility functions. The options are typicallydescriptions of transport situations or contexts constructed by the researcher.” (Kroes and Shelton, 1988)
The method is particularly useful in reliance to CBA, in order to compare the social costs and benefits ofmeasures by aggregating them on a common monetary scale. Especially the external effects often involve
impacts on public goods, which are not traded in the market and therefore, no market prices exist. One
technic for valuing public goods is the stated preference method, at what experimentees were asked
directly for their willingness-to-pay in order “to get an improvement or avoid a decrement in the quality
or quantity of the public good.” (Hensher, 1994) The Norwegian study is based on focus groups and onboard interviews with passengers in three different Norwegian cities where considerable accessibility
measures in public transport were implemented. “Special care is made to present attributes and theirlevels in a way that enable respondents to make trade-offs as realistically as possible in the choice
experiment, i. a. by extensive use of graphic illustrations. As a final exercise (…) [the researchers] obtain
respondents' willingness to pay for the "package" of full accessibility for all, from door to door, using
contingent valuation, and compare this with the sum of values for individual measures.” (Fearnley et al.,2009) According to the authors´ opinion within the stated preferences method the accessibility measures
can be prioritised, ranked and compared with other investments in the transport sector as part of CBA. So
as a result values for different accessibility measures were defined. Each measure is associated with arecommended value per ride in Norwegian krones (NOK). For example a low-floor bus gets NOK 1.67, alight at stops NOK 2.82 or satisfactory snow and ice removal NOK 4.97 (Table 4.4). The results are
representative for all passengers, and not only for those with disabilities. All in all the authors conclude
that the study has provided for the first time in Norway and probably also internationally a robust set ofvaluation of accessibility measures in public transport useable for CBA (Fearnley et al., 2009).

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Table 4.4. Summary of recommended valuations, NOKs per ride.
Values based on choice experiments

Value

Information at stops
Local map

0.43

Speaker with info of changes, disruptions

0.69

Screen with real-time information

4.05

All three information devices: map, speaker and RTI

4.62

Information on board
Next stop via speaker

3.62

Next stop via screen

3.67

Both: next stop via speaker and screen

4.20

Improved boarding and alighting
Low-floor vehicle

1.67

Low-floor vehicle and adjusted (elevated) curb at the
stop

2.07

Shelter at stops
Shelter without seating

3.12

Shelter with seating

5.10

Cleaning and ice/snow removal at stops
Satisfactory cleaning

3.62

Satisfactory snow and ice removal

4.97

Values based on contingent valuation
Light at stops

2.82

End to end trip universally designed

3.83

Stops and vehicle universally designed

4.35

Source: Fearnley, N., S. Flügel, M. Killi, M. Dotterud Leiren, Å. Nossum, K. Skollerud and J. Aarhaug (2009),
Kollektivtrafikantersverdsettingavtiltakforuniversell
utforming,
TØI
rapport,Oslo,
www.vegvesen.no/_attachment/121428/binary/227195 , accessed 15 December 2015, p.i-ii

Another study from Norway has used the stated preferences method in order to quantify benefits ofuniversal design measures related to public buildings and outdoor areas. Based on an internet survey with
about 800 answers benefit rates for 18 accessibility measures were defined. Their selection was based ona study of measures in different databases, for example of a Norwegian public sector administrationcompany and from some other similar projects for counties and municipalities in Norway. Each measure
was allocated to an average benefit and to benefits for different groups of people with functional
limitations who are dependent on these measures. The values were used within CBA in order to compare
benefits and costs of different measures and to prioritise them. As a result a spreadsheet software file anda manual which describes the calculations in general and for each measure were published for public use(Analyse & Strategi AS, WSP Norge and Vista Utredning AS, 2011). Table 4.5 shows the averagevaluations of the measures included in this study.

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Table 4.5. Average valuations, NOKs per visitor
EffortGood pedestrian walking surfaces outdoor

NOK
3Visual marking of walkways

9

Visual and tactile marking indoors

9

Stair handrails

7

Automatically opening entrance doors

1

Visual contrast on entrance doors

0,5

Access ramps for entrances

1

Access ramps in swimming pools

1

Access ramps at beaches

1Visual marking of doors and glass walls2

Low counters

4

Universal designed toilet facilities

1

Installing elevators

5

Modernisation of existing elevators

2

Indoor lighting

17

Outdoor lighting

17

Assistive listening system / hearing loop

0,9Floor space for wheelchair access

0,3

Source: Data: Analyse & Strategi AS, WSP Norge and Vista Utredning AS (2011), Tiltak for universell utforming i bygg og
uteområder Veileder i samfunnsøkonomisk analyse, Oslo,https://www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/upload/bld/uurapportveileder.pdf , accessed 15 January 2016, p.14

Notwithstanding the conclusions of the Norwegian studies mentioned above focusing on universal
design the values have to be interpreted with extremely caution. For example lists as shown in Table 4.4
and Table 4.5 cannot be ranked without a deeper look into each single measure, because the importanceof a single accessibility measure differs in reliance to the abilities of the current user. Some measures
benefit many different groups of users, but the benefit per user is rather low. Other measures maybe
affect only some user groups, but for them the measure could be an indispensable condition for using thewhole system. For example the measure “Low-floor vehicle and adjusted (elevated) curb at the stop” inTable 4.4 is valued with NOK 2.07, the “Shelter with seating” with NOK 5.10. But for wheelchair-users
a stepless entrance in the bus is essential for using the system and therefore this is also a matter of
avoiding discrimination (see previous section). By contrast a seating at the shelter is mostly irrelevant forwheelchair-users, but has high overall socioeconomic benefits. Besides a sharply higher willingness to
pay was recognised on non-accessible transport lines than on the accessible ones (Fearnley, 2016).
Table 4.5 shows high benefit rates per user for indoor and outdoor lighting, for visual and tactile
markings and for stair handrails and elevators. Especially good lightning conditions seem to be highly
profitable and might not be considered enough so far. On the contrary measures like hearing loops have acomparatively low average valuation of NOK 0.9 per person, but of course, for people using a hearing
aid, the value is much higher. As a consequence the interpretation of average benefit rates cannot be
separated from non-discrimination purposes. Merging both benefit dimensions in a kind of a matrix
could be a way to prioritise, with the absolutely indispensable accessibility measures for specific target
groups on the one hand, and with the averagely high rated measures on the other hand. Maybe this could
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lead to priorities regarding high overall socioeconomic benefits as well as high individual benefits andavoidance of discrimination and exclusion. On top of this it has always to be kept in mind the country
with his specific cultural and geographical background within which the study was made. For example in
the northern European countries like Norway measures like “satisfactory snow and ice removal” and“good lightning” could be much more important as for example in southern European countries, becauseof the quite long snowy and darkness periods during winter times.

The economic impact of accessible tourism in Europe and his reliance to the transport
sectorEconomic impact of accessible tourism in Europe
During 2012 and 2013 the European Commission tasked a few studies to get a better understandingof accessible tourism in the European Union. One of these studies has also analysed the economic impactof accessible tourism on the tourism sector in Europe. Besides the current and future demand foraccessible tourism in Europe and beyond as well the travel patterns and behaviours of tourists withaccessibility needs were investigated. In fact there is no direct link to economic benefits for the transport
sector in this study, but transportation is part of the services and facilities “which enable persons withspecial access needs, either permanent or temporary, to enjoy a holiday and leisure time with noparticular barrier or problem.” (GfK SE et al., 2013) Amongst others it became apparent that tourists
with disabilities spent less money and less nights during their journey than high-aged tourists. Thus the
economic benefit of “Tourism for All” in the EU produced by people with disabilities is less than thebenefit produced by elderly people, but both need accessibility features during their holidays. Within the
EU27 in 2012 both groups together spent approximately EUR 80 per one-day trip, about EUR 700 per
domestic overnight trip and about EUR 1 100 per foreign overnight trip. The direct overall benefits ofTourism for All to the economy of the European Union is quoted to a gross turnover of tourism-related
service providers of about EUR 352 billion and to a gross value added (GVA) of approximately
EUR 150 billion. In reliance to the gross domestic product (GDP) the economic benefit was
EUR 164 billion. This complies with more than 4.2 million employees who are located directly in the EU
tourism businesses.
In addition to the effects coming directly from the tourism businesses the tourism-induced indirect
economic effects have to be regarded. In general the tourism sector affects a wider-scale of economy
through the so-called “multiplicator effects”. These are the indirect and induced effects on income andemployment of up- and downstream economic sectors coming from expenses and investments, forexample industries producing goods and services for the tourism sector like wholesalers or the
manufacturing industry (Spektrum der Wissenschaft Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 2001). With simultaneousconsideration of all direct, indirect and induced effects the accessible tourism sector produced an
economic output of EUR 786 billion, a GVA of EUR 356 billion, a GDP of EUR 394 billion and about
8.7 million employees within the EU. Excluded in this study are the effects induced by tourists nottravelling alone. But “of course, like other tourists, older people and people with disabilities will
generally travel with friends or family.” (Frye, 2015)
Besides the domestic EU-market also eleven international key inbound markets (IM11) have been
analysed in this study. Tourists from outside the EU with accessibility demands travelling to the EU
spent on average about EUR 1 000 per trip. The direct overall benefits to the economy of the European
Union is quoted to a gross turnover of tourism-related service providers of about EUR 16 billion and to a
GVA of approximately EUR 7 billion. In reliance to the GDP the economic benefit was about EUR 8
billion. This complies with approximately 286 000 employees working directly in the EU tourism
businesses. Considering the multiplier effect the accessible tourism key inbound markets produced an
economic output of EUR 34 billion, a GVA of EUR 15 billion, a GDP of EUR 17 billion and about 538
000 employees within the EU.
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Furthermore the potential increase of demand for accessible tourism offers in the EU by 2020 wasinvestigated on the basis of three scenarios of improved accessibility measures. Within the framework ofthese scenarios, a certain amount of people who did not travel in the past would be willing to travel in the
future in case of improved accessibility offers of tourism facilities. For scenario A representing minimum
improvements of accessibility the economic benefit of demand for accessible tourism offers in the EU
would increase by 18.3 - 19.7% in comparison with the indicators used for the status quo analyses(economic output / gross turnover, GVA, employment) as mentioned above. For scenario B representing
medium improvements of accessibility the economic benefit would increase by 24.8 - 26.6% and for
scenario C representing extensive improvements of accessibility the economic benefit would increase up
to 39.4% against the baseline. Based on this scenario including all direct, indirect and induced effects the
economic output would be EUR 1 073 billion, the GDA EUR 484 billion and the GDP EUR 537 billion
within the EU. In addition the international inbound markets would also increase significantly. For
Scenario A up to 33% of people with special access needs who haven`t visited the EU yet would do so in
the future, under scenario B it will be up to 40% and under scenario C up to 46%. So the overall
economic benefit would increase by 28.9% under scenario A, by 53.3% under scenario B and by 74.9%
under Scenario C. In the best case and under consideration of the multiplier effect the accessible tourism
key inbound markets will produce an economic output up to EUR 60 billion, a GVA up to
EUR 26 billion, a GDP up to EUR 30 billion and up to 940 000 employees within the EU (GfK SE et al.,2013).
Table 4.6 summarises the economic benefits of accessible tourism in Europe.

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Table 4.6. Economic benefits of accessible tourism in Europe
EU27

IM11

EUR 80-

Average expenditures for domestic overnighttrips

EUR 700-

Average expenditures for foreign EU overnighttrips

EUR 1 100

EUR 1 000

Tourism

EUR 352 billion

EUR 16 billion

All

EUR 786 billion

EUR 34 billion

Scenario C

EUR 1 073
billionEUR 60 billion

Tourism

EUR 150 billion

EUR 7 billion

All

EUR 356 billion

EUR 15 billion

Scenario C

EUR 484 billion

EUR 26 billion

Tourism

EUR 164 billion

EUR 8 billion

All

EUR 394 billion

EUR 17 billion

Scenario C

EUR 537 billion

EUR 30 billion

Tourism

EUR 4.2 million

EUR 268 000

All

EUR 8.7 million

EUR 538 000

Scenario C

EUR 12.1 million

EUR 940 000

A

24%

33%

B

37%

40%

C

44%

46%

A

18.3 % – 19.7%

28.9%

B

24.8 % – 26.6%

53.3%

C

up to 39.4%

74.9%

Gross Value Added GVA

Gross Domestic Product GDP

Employees

Increase of tourism demand

Increase of economic
contribution

Scenario

Gross turnover

Scenario

Average expenditures for day trips

Source: Data: GfK SE, University of Surrey, Neumannconsult and ProA Solutions (2013), economic impact and travel patternsof accessible tourism in Europe. final report, Nürnberg, Surrey, Münster, Barcelona,www.media.designforall.org/publico/index.php?opc=documento&document='3106 ', p.26-32, p.165, p.174

As mentioned above no direct link to economic benefits for the transport sector was found in theEuropean study. But some points of reference can be elaborated from other publications. For example ina German study about the economic benefits of Tourism for All commissioned by the Federal Ministry
for Economics and Labour the structure of the daily expenses was analysed. So tourists with disabilitiesin Germany spent about 39% of their one-site tourism expenses for accommodation, 24% forgastronomy, 14% for other services, 13% for goods from the local retail sector, 7% for leisure offers and
3% for local transportation (Neumann and Reuber, 2004). Unfortunately the journey to a destination andback has not been considered. Nevertheless by all journeys a large part of the travel expenses account forchanging of location. Estimations assume that between 25% and 60% are allotted to the journey to andfrom one's destination. Of course the single parts of the travel expenses and the total travel prices aredifferent in reliance to the kind of a journey and to the means of transportation used (Freyer, 2009). But

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88 – 4. ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS AND THE ROLE OF TRANSPORT IN FOSTERING TOURISM FOR ALL

all in all it can be assumed that a significant part of the economic benefits named in Table 4.6 accounts
directly for the transportation sector. Only as an indication hereof the expenditure rates for travelling
mentioned above can be set in reliance to the today`s economic benefits of tourism-related service
providers and to scenario C representing extensive future improvements of accessibility, nonetheless theresults won’t be resilient. This would imply that the gross turnover coming from the transport to andfrom one's destination would increase from at least EUR 92 billion at present up to almost
EUR 130 billion, the GVA from EUR 39.25 billion up to EUR 55.3 billion and the GDP fromEUR 43 billion up to EUR 60.7 billion. And for local transportation the gross turnover would increase
from EUR 8.3 billion up to EUR 11.9 billion, the GVA from EUR 3.5 billion up to EUR 5.1 billion and
the GDP from EUR 3.9 billion up to EUR 5.6 billion.
Relevance of passenger transportation for the accessible tourism sector
As mentioned above, no direct link to economic benefits for the transport sector was found in theEuropean study about the economic impact of accessible tourism on the tourism sector. But neverthelesstourism is not possible without transportation and its elements like transport routes and means oftransportation (Gross, 2005). And, as shown in Figure 4.7, especially for an accessible holiday
experience mobility is one of the four key pillars.

Figure 4.7. Key pillars of an accessible holiday experience

Experienceability

Mobility

Service

Information

Accessible holiday experience

Touristic service chain, development of services and marketing
Source: Data: Neumann, P. and P. Reuber (2004), Ökonomische Impulse eines barrierefreien Tourismus für Alle. Münstersche
geographische Arbeiten, Münster, p.54

Following this, accessible transportation is one of the most important elements of the so-called“accessible touristic service chain”. This service chain takes into account several parts of a journey
subdivided in the following elements (Rebstock, 2010 / Rebstock, 2011):•

Travel preparation (preparation, provision of information, booking)•Travel action (journey to a destination, arrival and orientation, accommodation, catering,leisure time and sports, service and assistance, entertainment and culture, tours and shopping,
return journey)•

Travel post-processing: memories and confirmation

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In general people with disabilities have the same needs as people without disabilities (Hrubesch,1998). However related to accessibility implementation processes a considerable difference occurs. So it
is not possible only to look after access for some parts of the touristic service chain, because otherwise
people with disabilities will meet several barriers during their holiday activities (Treinen et al., 1999).
Thus people with disabilities make different demands to the touristic service chain and their single
elements (ADAC, 2003). So it´s very important not to forget one of these chain links, because “a journeyis like a chain - it is only as good as its weakest link.” (European Commission - Directorate General
Transport, 1999)
Accessible Tourism “needs products and cooperation all along the touristic service chain, (…) [if adestination wants to be successful in this sector]. Unrestricted accessibility to the transport sector is oneof the key requirements for success, because at least half of the terms of the touristic service chain(journey and departure, arrival and orientation, locomotion on location, leisure time and sports,
entertainment and culture, tours and shopping) are directly hooked on barrier-free mobility.” (Rebstock,2010) Therefore accessible transport systems are an essential condition to reach the other accessible
elements of the touristic service chain like hotels, restaurants or points of interest. According to this it`s
indispensable to develop the transport sector of a destination in a way that it`s accessible for all,whenever a region wants to be successful in the accessible tourism sector (Rebstock, 2011).
This statement is underlined by a German study commissioned by the Federal Ministry for
Economics and Labour, which detected that locomotion on location for 76% of the tourists with mobility
restrictions was an important criteria for the choice of their travel destinations. 74% mentioned thejourney to and from one's destination, 71% named tours (see Table 4.7).

Relevance

Table 4.7. Importance of the elements of the touristic service chain for people with disabilities
1

accommodation82%

2

locomotion on location

76%

3

journey to and from one's destination

74%

4

tours

71%

5

travel preparation71%

6

cultural activities

62%

7

arrival and orientation

61%

8

service on location

58%

9

health care on location

52%

10

catering

51%

11

shopping

37%

12

sports19%

Source: Data: Neumann, P. and P. Reuber (2004), Ökonomische Impulse eines barrierefreien Tourismus für Alle. Münstersche
geographische Arbeiten, Münster, p.33

This is in line with the European study mentioned above, which has analysed the importance ofdifferent aspects related to the choice of travel destinations by people with disabilities. 63% of themnamed “accessible transport types to and from destination” as important or very important for theirchoice and about 60% “transport once at destination” (GfK SE et al., 2013). Also “the majority of older
people rate comfort and ease of travel highly and (…) their choice of destination will be determined both

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90 – 4. ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS AND THE ROLE OF TRANSPORT IN FOSTERING TOURISM FOR ALL

by the ease with which they can arrive and leave and the convenience with which they can move aroundthe resort or city at their destination.” (Frye, 2015)
The German study also analysed which elements of the touristic service chain have been negatively
affected people with disabilities during their journey (see Table 4.8). Thus the greatest barriers exist in
reliance to cultural activities, locomotion on location plus tours and sports. Furthermore half of thepeople with disabilities are confronted with barriers during their journey to and from one's destination.
This situation is accentuated by the fact that especially for the journey to the destination and back, for the
locomotion on location and for tours the most clearly disproportions between the demands of thetraveller and the real observed conditions exist (Neumann and Reuber, 2004). These results are in linewith a previous German study, which amongst others identified that people with disabilities meet several
barriers during their holidays especially by using the public transport system and the local walkway
networks (Treinen et al., 1999).

Impairment

Table 4.8. Ranking of impairments during travelling1

cultural activities

67%

2

locomotion on location

65%

3

tours

63%

4

sports55%

5journey to and from one's destination

52%

6

accommodation

47%

7

arrival and orientation

44%

8

shopping

42%

9service on location

42%

10

travel preparation

40%

11

health care on location

35%

12

catering

24%

Source: Data: Neumann, P. and P. Reuber (2004), Ökonomische Impulse eines barrierefreien Tourismus für Alle. Münstersche
geographische Arbeiten, Münster, p.33.

For the accessible tourism sector this implies that besides an accessible journey to the destination
and back with private cars or public transport systems also an accessible locomotion on location has to be
obligatory ensured. This includes the individual motorised transport as well as local public transportsystems and local walkway networks (Rebstock, 2011). About 80% of the people with special accessneeds used the private car for the transport to and from one's destination or at destination during the last
12 months, as investigated in the European study about the economic impact of accessible tourism on the
tourism sector. Half of them used the airplane, around 40% took the train, 40 % used the local public
transport, one-third used a taxi and one-third took a long-distance bus (GfK SE et al., 2013). Indeed theprivate car is foregrounded also for tourists with access needs, but in comparison to travel analyses of all
tourists, people with disabilities using public transport systems more often as tourists without special
access needs (Treinen et al., 1999). Therefore the provision of an accessible public transport is not only
necessary because of enabling people with disabilities to use public transport at the destination but also
for building up an plausibly image of an accessible destination. Accessibility is getting more and more a

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matter of course, at least in bigger cities, because by now many cities have made their public transportsystems accessible or are just doing it step by step. Thus many tourists “expect and demand the samelevel of accessibility when they travel abroad.” (Frye, 2015) Without local accessible public transportoffers it cannot be expected that tourists perceive a destination as accessible. Besides it`s difficult or
maybe not possible at all to convincingly impart an image of an accessible destination. Hence accessible
public transport offers are also necessary because of touristic marketing reasons (Rebstock, 2005).
However to design the public transport useable to the greatest extent possible it`s essential that the fourthematic sectors infrastructure, rolling stock, operations and services as well as information are taken
into consideration. Aside this complexity within one single public transport system the public transport
sector as a whole also is very complex and all sectors have to link to each other in an accessible way ofusing (see Figure 4.8).
Figure 4.8. Complexity of public transport

Source: Rebstock, M. (2010), “Success factors for the development of a Tourism for All approach in low mountain ranges possible solutions and implementation difficulties on the basis of the Thuringian pilot project “model region for a barrier-free
Tourism for All””, in Andeas Kagermeier und Joachim Willms (ed.), Tourism Development in Low Mountain Ranges, Studien
zur Freizeit- und Tourismusforschung, Mannheim, pp. 70.

One example for the implementation of Tourism for All in a touristic marketing strategy is the cityof Erfurt, capital of the federal state of Thuringia, Germany. Since 1999, the tourist marketing board isworking on accessible tourism issues and Tourism for All is part of marketing plans and strategicplanning. Tours by minibus with wheelchair-access or guided in German Sign Language as well as thebrochure “Erfurt erlebbar für Alle” (Erfurt Tourismus und Marketing GmbH, 2014) listing accessible
offers are examples of these activities. Moreover in 2008 the city of Erfurt was one of the founding
members of the more national and internationally oriented touristic marketing association “Barrier-free
destinations in Germany” (Arbeitsgemeinschaft„ Barrierefreie Reiseziele in Deutschland“, 2008).
Nowadays “Erfurt is considered to be one of the most famous accessible destinations in Germany.” (GfK
SE et al., 2013) One of the key factors of this success are the widely accessible local public transport

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system (tram and bus) and walkway networks. This progress was critical driven by the presence of thelocal working group “Barrier-free city of Erfurt”, a network headed by the city representative for people
with disabilities and with members coming from the city administration, from associations of people withdisabilities, from the University of Applies Sciences, from the tourism sector, from the local public
transport company and from the Chamber of Architects (Landeshauptstadt Erfurt - Stadtverwaltung,2015).
Usually Tourism for All should be integrated in more holistic approaches to capitalise on tourism.
From there and in terms of inclusion Tourism for All purposes should always be kept in mind by all
activities and developments made for the tourism sector. In this context transportation is one of the key
sectors.

Conclusion
This chapter has shown that nowadays in many countries accessibility of transport systems is not a
voluntary task but a task bound by law. Besides it was elaborated that an accessible environment is not
only essential for people with disabilities and necessary for up to 40% of the population but also a matterof comfort for all users. Thus measures for travellers with special access needs in most cases provide
benefits and ease of use for all passengers.
Moreover a few studies dealing with economic benefits of accessibility measures were analysed.
Two studies from Norway used the stated preference method to monetise and prioritise different
universal design measures. In general this method seems to work also as a tool for analysing economic
benefits of accessibility measures. Nevertheless the results of these studies have to be interpreted withextremely caution in order to avoid discrimination, especially in reliance to measures, which are on the
one hand valued rather low on average and on the other hand are an indispensable condition for specificuser groups to use the system.
Finally the economic impact of accessible tourism and his inducible benefits on the transport sector
as well as the relevance of passenger transportation for accessible tourism was elaborated. All in all it canbe stated that accessible tourism produces a huge economic impact on the tourism sector and beyond, andby improving accessibility in the future a significant raise of economic benefits is possible. In general
traffic is precondition for tourism. Besides tourists spend a significant part of their travel expenses for thejourney to the destination and back and for local transportation. So it can be assumed that accessible
transport systems will directly benefit from an increasing accessible tourism market.
However tourism is more dependent on transportation than the other way around, because
transportation has more fields of action in reliance to passenger and freight traffic. Nevertheless forexample in Germany about 40% of all ways and 50% of all passenger kilometres are leisure or holiday
traffic (Gross, 2005). Anyhow accessible transportation is essential for accessible tourism respectively
for Tourism for All. According to this it`s indispensable to develop the journey to the destination andback as well as the transport on the location in a way that it`s accessible for all, whenever a region wants
to participate in the economic benefits induced by accessible tourism.

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Chapter 5
The benefits of improving access to the United Kingdom rail network via
the Access For All Programme

Tony Duckenfield
Steer Davies Gleave“Access for All” is a UK government funded programme to make stations more accessible forpeople with disabilities by providing step free access along with complementary measures such as
improved wayfinding information. Steer Davies Gleave was commissioned to evaluate theprogramme in a manner consistent with official guidance (“WebTAG”), and to quantify the benefits
to rail passengers and train operators.
This chapter describes what data was collected, how it was collected, how it was analysed and what
the results were. It also identifies some important lessons for improving the implementation of the
programme, which may have wider applicability.
In summary, the programme was shown to have a positive economic case even when only
considering the narrow benefits included within WebTAG. Additional social and community
benefits were also identified, and it was highlighted that better promotion of the programme would
improve its value for money even further.
While this particular case study focusses on UK rail stations, the lessons and methodologicalapproach are applicable more widely.

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Introduction and scope
The Access for All (A4A) programme is a Department for Transport (DfT) funded initiative toimprove accessibility at key stations on the rail network. It provides for the creation of obstacle freeroutes through the station to the trains, plus complementary improvements funded via a “small schemes”
fund, all aimed at making stations more accessible for disabled passengers.
The fund initially committed spending of GBP 370 million over the period 2004 – 2015. In addition,
the small schemes fund has delivered smaller scale accessibility improvements at more than
1 100 stations. The Main Programme is now seeing GBP 160m extension of the fund and programmefrom 2015-2019.
The UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) commissioned a research study to quantify the benefits ofthe current Access for All Programme in order to support additional funding for the programme for2015-2019. The 2015 study followed a previous study completed in 2010, also undertaken by Steer
Davies Gleave. The full 2015 report is available to download from the Steer Davies Gleave website1.
Further information about the programme can be accessed via the Network Rail website2.
Research was required to specifically look at:•What are the benefits to passengers of the programme?

•

What are the benefits to train operators?

•

How could the programme be further improved?

•

What are the wider social benefits and what BCR metric should be used to assess the benefitsof investment in accessible pedestrian routes on railway stations?

The research comprised the following elements:•

Selecting a representative sample of stations which had benefitted from Access for All
investment;•

Accessibility audits of the selected stations;•

Station user interview surveys at the selected stations;•Classified count surveys using video cameras, which enabled the volume of passengers withwalking aids and luggage to be counted, along with overall usage and usage of the lifts;•

Analysis of station usage and Railcard sales at selected stations and control stations in order tosupport the quantification of impacts;•

Business Case assessment to determine the benefit to cost ratio (BCR) of the Access for All
programme.

Study stations
Following analysis of those stations included in the Access for All programme to date, the following
stations were selected as a representative sub-sample:•

Bridgend;•

Huddersfield;•

Kidderminster;•Purley;THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS–  OECD/ITF 2017

5. THE BENEFITS OF IMPROVING ACCESS TO THE UNITED KINGDOM RAIL NETWORK VIA THE ACCESS FOR ALL PROGRAMME – 99•

Rutherglen; and•Vauxhall (London).

This sample of stations provides a good spread of locations, station sizes and types, as shown in
Table 5.1.
Table 5.1. Study stations
StationLocation

Station type

Bridgend

Wales

Huddersfield

Yorkshire& theHumberWest
Midlands

Mediummixed usestationLarge mixed
use station

Kidderminster
PurleyLondonRutherglen

ScotlandVauxhallLondonLondonMediummixed usestationMediumcommuterstationMediummixed usestationLarge
commuterstationType of works (mainelements)
2 lifts installed and a new
footbridge
2 glass lifts installed fromsubway to platform level,
new stairways
2 lifts installed and a new
footbridge
4 lifts (platform to
subway) and substation,
significant station
refurbishment
1 lift installed, new ticket
office and foyer renewal
4 lifts (platform to
subway) and substation,
significant station
refurbishment

Completed

Spend/user

March
2012

GBP 0.94

September2011

GBP 0.48

July 2008

GBP 1.37

July 2008

GBP 1.22

March
2009

GBP 1.62

July 2012

GBP 0.15

Station Accessibility Audits
The Accessibility Audits were used to assess the presence and quality of station provisions from anaccessibility perspective. Their overall aim was to assess the effectiveness of the Access for All
investment in making it easy for people with a disability or encumbrance to move around the station andthrough it to access the rail network.
In general, the provision and quality of accessibility infrastructure varied. While most stations havethe infrastructure in place, on several stations we identified issues relating to the location of theinfrastructure, the signage to it and maintenance. Some specific issues included:•

Inaccessible ticket machines and ticket counters;•

Difficulty in locating the help points and induction loops;•

Lack of presence of station attendants on platforms;•

Lack of lift visibility; and•Fading warning tactile/coloured strips on platform edge.

The images below illustrate the variations in quality of implementation at each of the study stations.

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Bridgend station

Huddersfield

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Kidderminster

PurleyTHE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS–  OECD/ITF 2017

102 –5. THE BENEFITS OF IMPROVING ACCESS TO THE UNITED KINGDOM RAIL NETWORK VIA THE ACCESS FOR ALL PROGRAMME
Rutherglen

Vauxhall

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Station user interviews
The station user interviews involved relatively short face-to-face interviews conducted withpassengers waiting for a train. To ensure the capture of views of disabled station users, the interview
survey was based on a quota sample in order to over-sample disabled passengers.
In total, 1 849 passengers were interviewed, with the sample by passenger category being:•

Mobility Impairment - 220•

Wheelchair User - 14•

Hearing Impairment - 96•

Visual Impairment - 137•

Encumbered – 832•

Unencumbered – 834.

The questionnaire included questions concerning:•

General travel behaviour and use of rail;•

Basic details about current trip (purpose, use of Railcard, etc.);•

Ratings for relevant station attributes, and overall ease of use of station;•

Reasons for any low ratings;•

Awareness of any improvements to the station;•

Effect of any improvements on use of the station and general perceptions of accessibility of therail network;•

Whether the current trip would have been made without the improvements (to identify
generated trips); and•Passenger details (Postcode, demographic, mobility / disability details).

Awareness of improvements
Overall, 41% of station users had noticed the improvements made at the stations “in the last few
years”. Amongst passengers with a disability the recognition was higher, with 57% of mobility impaired
passengers and wheelchair users noticing the improvements at these stations.

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Figure 5.1. Are you aware of any changes made to this station in the last few years to make it easier
to use the station?
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

4%

14%

40%

29%

4%
42%

4%

5%

50%

50%

6%

5%

58%

54%

Don't Know
57%

57%

54%

46%

45%

36%

41%

No
Yes

Satisfaction
Most (82%) users of the six study stations said that they found getting from the entrance to theplatforms ‘very easy’. This was also true of the disability groups, with the vast majority describing
access from the entrance to the platforms either ‘fairly easy’ or ‘very easy’.
Figure 5.2. How easy did you find it to get from or to the station entrance to the platforms?

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

5%
22%

7%
36%

4%
24%

4%
18%

15%

10%

13%

Don't know
68%

57%

68%

75%

79%

86%

82%

Very difficult
Fairly difficult
Neither easy or difficult
Fairly easy
Very easy

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Respondents were also asked to categorise the overall accessibility of the station they were using,and the majority (70%) said they felt that the station was definitely suitable for everyone to use, with afurther 24% saying that they felt it was possibly suitable for everyone to use. This did leave 6% overall
and 14% of wheelchair users saying the station is not suitable for people who are disabled or travellingwith bulky items.
Figure 5.3. Overall rating of station accessibility
100%

4%

4%

2%

24%

18%

23%

90%
80%

8%

5%

27%

31%

14%
17%

6%
24%

70%

Not suitable for people whoare disabled or those
travelling with bulky items

60%
50%
40%
30%

72%

20%
10%

78%

75%

65%

63%

68%

70%

Possibly suitable foreveryone to use
Definitely suitable foreveryone to use

0%

Impact of improvements
Respondents who said they were aware of improvements were asked if the improvements had
affected their use of the station and 11% of all station users said that they had increased the number oftrips they made from that station, with 6% having increased the number of trips significantly.
This figure was higher amongst some disabled groups, with a third of wheelchair users, 19% ofhearing impaired passengers, and 15% mobility impaired passengers having increased their use of thestation.

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106 –5. THE BENEFITS OF IMPROVING ACCESS TO THE UNITED KINGDOM RAIL NETWORK VIA THE ACCESS FOR ALL PROGRAMME
Figure 5.4. Have any of these improvements affected your use of this station?
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Don't know
67%

Decrease significantly

76%

83%

92%

86% 90% 87%
Decrease slightly

11%
8%
7%

22%

4%
15%

No change
3%

5%
5%

2%
5%

5%
6%

Yes, increased trips slightly
Yes, increased trips
significantly

In general, station users felt that the improvements at the study stations would encourage people
with limited mobility or a disability to use the station more, with 59% saying that the improvements
would definitely or possibly encourage others with a disability to use the station more. This figure washigher amongst the mobility impaired (71%) and the hearing impaired (66%).

Figure 5.5. Do you think these improvements, if any have encouraged other people with limited
mobility or a disability to use this station more?
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

11%

7%
7%

22%

23%

22%

23%

22%

17%

21%

19%

25%

25%

18%
13%
24%

26%

50%
25%

26%
23%

47%

36%

41%

28%

Don't Know
No change

35%

31%

34%

Yes possibly
Yes definitely

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Provision for passengers with different disabilities
This section considers the overall provision at the study stations for passengers with different
disabilities, assessing the quality of provision for those with difficulties walking, seeing, and hearing, andthose encumbered by luggage.
Those with a mobility difficulty were generally satisfied with the facilities provided for passengers
that have difficulty walking – three quarters described them as either ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, with only 5%
describing them as ‘poor’. Figure 5.6 provides the details.
Figure 5.6. Facilities to help people with difficulties walking
Very Poor, 0%

Poor, 5%

Excellent, 17%
Fair, 20%

Good, 58%

Base=respondents with a mobility difficulty

Two-thirds (64%) described the facilities for people with difficulties seeing as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’with only 4% describing them as ‘poor’. Some room for improvement was identified with 32% saying
the facilities are ‘fair’.
Figure 5.7. Facilities to help people with difficulties seeing
Very Poor, 0%
Excellent, 13%Poor, 4%

Fair, 32%

Good, 51%

Base=respondents with a visual impairment

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Similarly, while the majority (63%) rated the facilities for people with hearing difficulties as either‘good’ or ‘excellent’, nearly a third (28%) rated them as ‘fair’ and 7% as ‘poor’. However, on a morepositive note, none said they are ‘very poor’ (see Figure 5.8).
Figure 5.8. Facilities to help people with hearing impairments
Very Poor, 0%
Excellent, 11%Poor, 7%

Fair, 28%

Good, 52%

Base=respondents with a hearing impairment
Overall, those carrying bulky luggage or equipment were happy with the facilities provided forthem, as shown in the following figure (Figure 5.9). However, 8% did rate the facilities as ‘poor’ or ‘very
poor’.
Figure 5.9. Facilities to help people with difficulties carrying bulky luggage or equipment
Very Poor, 1%

Poor, 7%

Excellent, 18%

Fair, 19%

Good, 55%

Base=respondents encumbered by luggage
The impact of provision of facilities for disabled people on station choice is notable amongst somedisability groups, particularly for wheelchair users, with the majority saying that they would either
always or occasionally travel further to a station which is easier for disabled people to use. Just under athird of mobility impaired and hearing impaired passengers felt the same.

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Figure 5.10. When considering which station to use, would you travel further in order to start orend your journey at a station that is easy to use for people with disabilities?
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

29%
68%

71%
36%

80%

85%

88%

85%
Makes no difference

17%

Yes, occasionally

23%

36%

12%

9%

13%
7%

10%
5%

9%
4%

Yes, always

10%
5%

Lift usage
The numbers of passengers using the lifts for an average weekday and average Saturday are shownin Table 5.2, by type of disability. This highlights the point that the majority of lift users are actually
passengers without any disability or encumbrance (73% on a weekday and 61% on a Saturday).
Passengers encumbered by luggage are the second largest category, with people with a mobility
difficulty only representing 2-3% of lift users.
Comparing the lift usage to the overall station usage indicates that overall, 5% of the station users
use the lifts. Lift usage did vary substantially from station to station, with both the volume of passengers
and the proportion of passengers using the lifts varying. In fact, the proportion of passengers using thelifts ranged from 1% to 8%, with a key factor believed to be the visibility and consequent awareness of
the lifts.
Table 5.2. Lift usage counts
Day ofweek
Weekday
SaturdayWeekday
Saturday

Mobility

Wheelchair

Hearing

Sight

Encumbered

Unencumbered

Total

67
39

7
2

0
0

69
16

915
546

2925
938

3982
1541

2%
3%

0.2%
0.1%

0%
0%

2%
1%

23%
35%

73%
61%

100%
100%

Economic appraisal
The economic appraisal is based on a spreadsheet model developed based on Department forTransport WebTAG guidance3. The model therefore has ‘standard’ elements (e.g. economic appraisal
parameters and economic performance metrics) that are common to all economic appraisals and fully

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consistent with current WebTAG guidance, as well as ‘scheme specific’ elements that vary on a case bycase basis (e.g. scheme cost, demand, benefits, opening date etc.). As far as we are aware, this is the only
example of where WebTAG has been used to assess accessibility benefits, but there is no specific reason
why other schemes or programmes cannot be evaluated in this way.
There are a number of potential economic benefits from improved accessibility at stations. In broad
terms these accrue to three sets of people; existing station users who gain from an improvement in theaccessibility and general quality of provision; new users who are attracted to use the station due to these
improvements and who gain a benefit from doing so; and non-users who are indirectly affected as aresult of ‘externality’ impacts stemming from a change in transport demand and network costs. These
potential benefits are set out in Table 5.3.
Table 5.3. Potential economic benefits from station accessibility improvements
User group

Description

Example impacts of accessibility schemes

Existing Trips /Users

People who already use thestations.

Benefits from improved accessibility – due toobstacle free access, better signage andinformation, trained staff etc.

New Trips /Users

New station and rail users.

Benefits from improved accessibility – due toobstacle free access, better signage andinformation, trained staff etc.

Non-UsersThose who do not change their
behaviour as a result of thescheme, but who are affectedin some way as additional
people using rail have ‘second
order’ impacts on the wider
transport network.

Benefits from a reduction in car trips, leading to
reduced accident and emissions costs, as well
as decongestion benefits for other road users.
Crowding impacts will occur if accessibility
improvements lead to enough increase in railpassengers to create crowding disbenefits forexisting rail users.

User benefits
The user benefits are based on the growth in station usage due to the station improvements, as
identified in the post-implementation station users surveys. This is then used to calculate the percentagechange in generalised costs per station and user group using a generalised cost elasticity of -1. The ‘Do
Minimum’ generalised costs (in minutes) are calculated based on the weighted journey times for thedifferent parts of a rail journey, and the ‘Do Something’ generalised costs (in minutes) are the ‘Do
Minimum’ generalised cost multiplied by the percentage change.
The user benefits for the existing users are based on the difference between the ‘Do Something’ andthe ‘Do Minimum’ generalised costs, the value of time (VoT) and the number of existing users, as shownin the formula below:
User Benefits existing users = (‘Do Something’ GC – ‘Do Minimum’ GC) * VoT * No existing users
New users get half of the benefits experienced by existing users. The ‘rule of half’ is based on theassumption that new users’ willingness to pay is equal to that of the average existing user.

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Non-user benefits
Non-user benefits are benefits that accrue to people and businesses who are not direct users of the
improved stations. The externality benefits are derived from the reduction in car vehicle kilometres
resulting from modal transfer to rail due to the accessibility improvements at the stations.
The reduction in vehicle kilometres drives the following externality benefits:•

Decongestion - Decongestion benefits result from the removal of cars from the road and accrue
to remaining cars on the road network. The benefit per kilometre removed depends on theexisting level of congestion;•

Infrastructure - Reduced infrastructure costs resulting from a reduction in car kilometres;•

Accident reduction - Accident reduction results from the removal of car kilometres;•

Reduction in carbon emissions - Carbon emissions are also reduced as a consequence of the
reduction in car kilometre;•

Reduction in local air and noise pollution - Locally, air and noise pollution is reduced as aconsequence of the reduction in car kilometre.; and•Indirect taxes – indirect loss in government tax revenue following reduced car kilometresprincipally due to reduced petrol usage.

Rail operator benefits
The growth in station use will result in an increase in rail fare revenue to the train operatingcompanies. The additional rail revenue is calculated based on the increase in demand per user group andstation and the average cost of an off-peak return ticket at each station, adjusted to account for Railcard
usage (as identified in the station user survey).
Additional revenue from retail spending on stations and trains and Railcard purchase have not been
included, although these would be expected to increase with increased station use.
Appraisal assumptions
The economic appraisal is based on the following assumptions:•

Assumed overall scheme construction start year of 2009 –for purpose of appraisal a single
representative start point has been selected, and scheme opening year of 2010. This reflects theaverage construction start and opening years for the selected stations (however, exact
construction start years have been used for the cost rebasing for each individual station);•

An appraisal period of 60 years, as standard in DfT appraisal guidance. In addition a sensitivity
test at 30 years has been undertaken;•

All scheme costs and benefits are presented in 2010 prices and values in line with DfT
guidance;•

The discount rate used is 3.5% for the first 30 years, then 3.0% thereafter, in line withguidance;•

Costs are assumed to grow in real terms, e.g. a real increase above general inflation. The
assumption employed is that all costs (operating costs and fares / revenues) increase at a real
growth rate of 1% per annum;•

Values of Time and Value of Time Growth in line with DfT guidance:

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112 –5. THE BENEFITS OF IMPROVING ACCESS TO THE UNITED KINGDOM RAIL NETWORK VIA THE ACCESS FOR ALL PROGRAMME•All benefits have been valued at an average non-work value of time of GBP 6.04 per hourbased on the ‘other’ market price (in 2010 prices). This is a prudent assumption as the value of‘other’ travel time is lower than that of ‘commuting’ and ‘business’;•

The non-work real growth in the VoT has been applied to all benefits over the appraisal period(from WebTAG);•

Average rail demand growth of 2.5% per annum has been assumed up to 2035, beyond which
no further growth is assumed. This is somewhat lower than the observed rail growth between
1987 and 2014, so provides a conservative estimate. The growth rates and ‘cap year’ areconsistent with those employed for ‘standard’ DfT rail appraisals;•

Externality benefits based on DfT’s Marginal Externality Costs (WebTAG). This varies bystation depending on location and dominant road type assumptions;•

The demand uplift due to the improvements has been calculated based on the station user
surveys where passengers were asked if the accessibility improvements had led to an increasein their usage of the station. The percentage that stated that they had increased their usage were
multiplied with the assumed increase, 1/3 more trips for those saying they had increased their
number of trips “significantly” and 1/10 more trips for those saying they had increased their
number of trips “slightly”;•

Of the new demand 50% is assumed to be modal transfer from car;•

To take into account general growth unrelated to the accessibility improvements at the selected
A4A stations, the growth numbers have been reduced by subtracting the average control station
growth;•Unencumbered users are assumed to have no growth related to the station accessibility
improvements. This is a conservative assumption as 3% of this group indicated that they had
increased their use following the station accessibility improvements. This approach was
adopted because of the relative uncertainty over the valuation for these users (for example howmuch benefit did they actually get from using the lifts?). However, a sensitivity test was used toquantify this potential benefit.

Appraisal results
The appraisal gave an overall positive benefit cost ratio, but with substantial variation between the
different stations. Overall, the benefits exceed costs by 2.4:1 with one station (Vauxhall) having a very
high BCR of 11.3:1.
The key economic benefits of the scheme are user benefits, especially benefits to existing users,
which provide over half of the total benefits. These existing users include, for example, passengers withluggage or travelling with small children.
It is important to recognize that the BCR calculation does not include the following benefits:•

Benefits to ‘unencumbered’ users - there will also be benefits the unencumbered due to generalrenewal of station facilities and improved quality of signage, information, lighting and removalof clutter;•

The value of improvements of this nature (i.e. inclusiveness) that the general population (i.e.
those who do not use the scheme) place on such interventions, based on their principles andethics about the role of Government (and by extension Government expenditure) in supporting
an inclusive society;

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5. THE BENEFITS OF IMPROVING ACCESS TO THE UNITED KINGDOM RAIL NETWORK VIA THE ACCESS FOR ALL PROGRAMME – 113•‘Option values’ for potential users of the scheme. The value that potential users would gain
would derive from the possible future benefits associated with:•

Anticipation of future need – i.e. people who will have children / get old;•

Ability to travel if temporarily incapacitated e.g. injured ; and•The ageing of the population means that in the future more people will likely come into thevarious disabled categories.

Sensitivity testingSensitivity testing was used to verify the robustness of the results and highlight the key parameters
affecting them. The following tests were used:1.

Operating & maintenance costs (central case 1.5% pa, test case 3% pa);2.

Capital cost (test case +50% on actual costs);3.

Demand elasticity (central case -1, test case -0.5);

4.

Generalised cost (central case 130, test case 100);

5.

Uplift in demand (central case based on survey results from each station applied to that station,
test case based on the average survey response across all stations applied to each station);

6.

Base demand (50% of central case);7.

Benefits from new trips (central case 50% benefit, test case 25%);

8.

Including unencumbered users (central case 0% benefit, test case 1% increase in trips);

9.

Modal shift from car (central case 50% modal shift, test case 25%);

10. Fare levels (test case 50% of estimated fare levels);
11. Appraisal period (central case 60 years, test case 30 years); and12. Rail trip growth (central case 2.5%, test case 5.0% - closer to the observed growth in nationalrail trips over the last 30 years).
The overall outcome of the sensitivity testing was that even in the worst case the business case wasstill positive (a BCR of 1.08). At the other extreme, including benefits to unencumbered users raises the
BCR to 19.45.

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Conclusions
The overall conclusion is that the Access for All programme benefits users and society moregenerally, and has a positive business case. In other words, the benefits of improving the accessibility ofrail stations by creating step-free access outweigh the costs even using a fairly narrow business caseassessment methodology.
At the same time, the business case is dependent on the particular circumstances of the station, withthe crucial factor being the number of disabled and encumbered passengers using the station.
It is important to recognize that the business case is only part of the story. Improved access tostations has important social benefits in terms of giving everyone the opportunity to travel by rail. Its
benefits also extend well beyond people with a disability, most obviously to passengers with luggage, butalso to what we’ve termed “unencumbered” passengers: in effect, all passengers benefit to some extent.
The passenger survey data provides some good supporting evidence for this.
This study does highlight some general lessons outside of just the Access for All programme. In
particular, to maximize the impact of investment in infrastructure (“hard measures”) a co-ordinatedprogramme of complementary “soft” measures should be implemented. These should include (but not belimited to):•Communications to raise awareness of the improvements targeted not just at people alreadytravelling, but also at those put off from travelling by perceived difficulties in accessing
services. Typically this may include a launch event and coverage in local media (newspapers,
magazines, radio);•

Clear passenger information and signage on-site;•

Good information available at the journey planning stage (typically on websites) which clearly
identifies the accessibility features available;•

Staff training and awareness so they can help and support disabled passengers without taking
away their independence.

Another general conclusion is that accessibility to a transport service is only as good as the weakest
link. In the rail example, the benefit of improving access to stations is severely compromised if
passengers cannot then get on their train. This should be borne in mind when considering funding
priorities.
Finally, in terms of who benefits, a good scheme to improve accessibility can actually benefit
everyone, not only people with a disability. All passengers benefit to some extent, as does the transport
operator (which benefits from increased patronage), and society more widely. Society can benefit both inan economic sense where improved access to public transport encourages switching from less efficientprivate transport, and in a social sense in terms of helping to create a more level playing field and a morecaring society which everyone can proud of.

THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS–  OECD/ITF 2017

5. THE BENEFITS OF IMPROVING ACCESS TO THE UNITED KINGDOM RAIL NETWORK VIA THE ACCESS FOR ALL PROGRAMME – 115

Notes

1

http://www.steerdaviesgleave.com/sites/default/files/elfinder/Reports/Access4AllBenefitResearch
2015.pdf
2

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/improvements/access-for-all/3

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/transport-analysis-guidance-webtag

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116 – PARTICIPANTS LIST

Participants list
Ann Frye Ltd
Mrs. Ann FRYE
Director
Ann Frye Ltd
75Alderney Street
SW1P 4DR London
United Kingdom
Tel: +44-207 944 4461
Fax: +44-207 944 6102
Email: ann.frye@dft.gsi.gov.uk
EU/UE - European Commission
Mr. Jean-Louis COLSONHead of Unit
Directorate General for Mobility and Transport
EU/UE - European Commission
Rue de la Loi 200
1049 Brussels
Belgium
Tel: +3222960995
Email: jean-louis.colson@ec.europa.eu

Finnish Transport Safety Agency, TraFi
Ms. Kirsi TERVOLASpecial Adviser
Organisation Services; Flight operations training
Finnish Transport Safety Agency, TraFi
Kumpulantie 9, 00520 Helsinki
FI-00101 Helsinki
FinlandTel: +358400383541
Email: kirsi.tervola@trafi.fi

THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS –  OECD/ITF 2017

PARTICIPANTS LIST – 117

HDR
Ms. Daphne FEDERING
Principal Economist
HDR
8403 Colesville Rd 910
MD 20910 Silver Spring
United States
Tel: +12404852623
Email: Daphne.Federing@hdrinc.com
Mr. David LEWISFormer Senior Vice President
HDR
903 – 160 George Street Ottawa
K1N 9M2 Ottawa
CanadaTel: +613 241 1690
Email: dlewis1@bell.net
Institute of Transport Economics
Mr. Nils FEARNLEY
Senior Researcher
Institute of Transport Economics
Gaustadalleen 210349 Oslo
NorwayTel: +4790923924
Email: naf@toi.no

THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS –  OECD/ITF 2017

118 – PARTICIPANTS LIST
New York City Department of Transportation
Mr. Quemuel ARROYO
Policy Advisor on Accessibility
PolicyNew York City Department of Transportation
55 Water Street
9th Floor
10041 New York
United States
Tel: +12128396426
Email: qarroyo@dot.nyc.gov
Steer Davies Gleave
Mr. Tony DUCKENFIELD
Head of Behavioural InsightSteer Davies Gleave
28-32 Upper GroundSE1 9PD London
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7910 5000
Email: Tony.Duckenfield@sdgworld.net
Syndicat des Transports de la Région Ile-de-France
Mme Laurence DEBRINCATHead of Studies department
DDAET Division Etudes Générales
Syndicat des Transports de la Région Ile-de-France
39 bis 41 rue de Châteaudun
75009 Paris
Tel: + 33 (0)1 53 59 21 06
Fax: +33 (0)1 53 59 21 33
Email: laurence.debrincat@stif.info

THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS –  OECD/ITF 2017

PARTICIPANTS LIST – 119

SYSTRA
Mr. Mark WARDMAN
Technical Director
Mnchester Office
SYSTRA
25th Floor, City Tower, Piccadilly Plaza
MI 4BT Manchester
United Kingdom
Tel: + 447718359372
Fax: +01612360095
Email: mwardman@systra.com
Technical University of Denmark
Ms. Sonja HAUSTEIN
Senior Researcher
Department of Transport
Technical University of Denmark
Bygningstorvet 116B,
Kgs. Lyngby
2800 Denmark
Tel: +4545256519
Fax: +4545936533
Email: sonh@transport.dtu.dk
The Korea Transport Institute (KOTI)
Ms. Kyounga PARK
Associate Research Fellow
The Korea Transport Institute (KOTI)
Postal address, 370 Sicheong-Daero,339-007 Sejong-Si
Korea
Tel: +82(44)2113061
Email: kapark@koti.re.kr

THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS –  OECD/ITF 2017

120 – PARTICIPANTS LISTThe University of Waikato
Mr. Stuart LOCKE
Professor of FinanceHamilton
The University of Waikato
273 Peake Road, RD 1
4393 Cambridge
New ZealandTel: +64275004260
Email: smlocke@waikato.ac.nz
Traffic Design Group Ltd (TDG)
Ms. Bridget BURDETT
Senior Transportation Researcher
Traffic Design Group Ltd (TDG)
Level 6, 11 Garden Place
3240 Hamilton
New ZealandTel: +64 7 839 5500
Email: bridget.burdett@tdg.co.nz
University of Applied Sciences Erfurt
Mr. Markus REBSTOCK
Senior Researcher
Transport and Spatial Planning Institute
University of Applied Sciences Erfurt
Bürgermeister-Schiller-Str. 18,
D-99098 Erfurt
Germany
Tel: +493616700655
Email: rebstock@fh-erfurt.de

THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS –  OECD/ITF 2017

PARTICIPANTS LIST – 121

University College London (UCL)
Mr. Roger MACKETT
Emeritus Professor of Transport Studies
Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering
University College London (UCL)
Gower Street
LondonUnited Kingdom
Tel: +44020 7679 1554
Email: roger.mackett@ucl.ac.uk
Mrs. Jenny MINDELL (COHEN)
Reader in Public HealthResearch Department of epidemiology & Public Health
University College London (UCL)
1-19 Torrington Place
LondonUnited Kingdom
Tel: +44-2076791269
Email: j.mindell@ucl.ac.uk

OECD/OCDE
Ms. Aimee AGUILAR JABER
Economist
ITF/RPAOECD
Marshall Building 2143
2 rue André-Pascal
75016 Paris
FranceTel: +(33-1) 45 24 92 20
Email: Aimee.AGUILARJABER@itf-oecd.org

THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS –  OECD/ITF 2017

122 – PARTICIPANTS LIST

Mr. Lorenzo CASULLO
Economist
ITF/RPAOECD
Marshall Building 2215
2 rue André-Pascal
75016 Paris
FranceTel: +(33-1) 45 24 13 30
Email: Lorenzo.CASULLO@itf-oecd.org
Ms. Mary CRASSHead of Institutional Relations & Summit
ITF/IRSOECD
Marshall Building 2114
2 rue André-Pascal
75016 Paris
FranceTel: +(33-1) 45 24 13 24
Email: Mary.CRASS@itf-oecd.org
Mme Monserrat FONBONNATAssistant
ITF/RPAOECD
Marshall Building 2135
2 rue André-Pascal
75016 Paris
FranceTel: + (33-1) 85 55 60 34
Email: Monserrat.FONBONNAT@itf-oecd.org

THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS –  OECD/ITF 2017

PARTICIPANTS LIST – 123

Mr. Stephen PERKINSHead of Research & Policy Analysis
ITF/RPAOECD
Marshall Building 2133
2 rue André-Pascal
75016 Paris
FranceTel: +(33-1) 45 24 94 96
Fax: (33) 1.45.24.13.22
Email: Stephen.PERKINS@itf-oecd.org
Mr. Daniel VERYARD
Transport Analyst
ITF/RPAOECD
Marshall Building 2191
2 rue André-Pascal
75016 Paris
FranceTel: +(33-1) 45 24 82 68
Email: Daniel.VERYARD@itf-oecd.org
Mr. Seung Kook WU
Secondee (KOTI)
ITF/RPAOECD
Marshall Building 2191
2 rue André-Pascal
75016 Paris
FranceTel: +(33-1) 45 24 90 84
Email: SeungKook.WU@itf-oecd.org

THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRANSPORT SYSTEMS –  OECD/ITF 2017

Airport Demand Forecasting for Long-Term Planning

Economic Benefits of Improving Transport
Accessibility
The economic benefits of improving transport accessibility for all are rarely
taken into account when making decisions about investment and regulations.
While costs are often known, benefits such as greater access to services, jobs andtourism are unknown or even undefined.
This report reviews economic theory and practical case studies to set out thebasis for the development of a common framework empowering decision-makers
to value the impacts of greater accessibility for mobility-impaired, encumbered
and ultimately all passengers.

Economic Benefits of
Improving Transport
Accessibility
photo credit: NYC DOT

2 rue André Pascal
75775 Paris Cedex 16
FranceT +33 (0)1 45 24 97 10
F +33 (0)1 45 24 13 22
Email : contact@itf-oecd.org
Web: www.itf-oecd.org

Roundtable Report 165

International Transport Forum

2017

165

Roundtable Report