Ahsan Khan

SN: 13097496

07/10/2015

Assignment: Engineering, Society and Planet 103P

Title: Distributional impacts of transport
Transportation is an essential part of our everyday lives. Whether it is students
taking the bus to school, or commuters driving to work or people taking the train
to visit family, transportation is important to people from all walks of life. This
essay will discuss the distributional impacts of transport, and try to describe how
transport can have negative impacts on peoples lives, and some of the social,
economic and environmental factors that contribute to this. The role of engineers
in mitigating the negative impacts shall also be discussed.
Experts state that transport has distributional impacts; benefits and costs are
often distributed unevenly across different sectors of the economy. Particularly
disadvantaged groups are impacted by negative impacts, (Christie, 2015).
Christie further states that some of the impacts which affect poor people more
than the rich include, a lack of safety and personal security, pollution (higher
exposure rates to ozone, particulates and nitrogen oxide), poor quality urban
environments and road death and injury. Other transport experts offer a slightly
different list of adverse environmental and health impacts caused by transport
activities, of which local and regional air pollution, climate change, and noise
impacts are the most important, (Van Dender & Crist, 2009).
It is important to understand the distributional impacts of transport as transport
decisions often have significant equity impacts. Equity refers to the fairness with
which impacts (benefits and costs) are distributed, (Christie, 2015). The below
image (from Christie, 2015) makes an important point; Equity is about fairness,
its about making sure people get access to the same opportunities. Christie
suggests a solution for reducing inequality and inequity; transport policies should
be used to help economically and socially disadvantaged groups. It can be
argued that Londons administration has been doing a fairly good job of
implementing a progressive policy by investing in transport and regeneration
projects in deprived areas such as Stratford, Kings Cross and Brixton (just a few
recent examples).

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Ahsan Khan

SN: 13097496

07/10/2015

Let us consider what engineers can do to mitigate the negative impacts of

transport on peoples lives. Christie suggests that transport should be affordable
and disadvantaged groups should not bear excessive external impacts (pollution,
collisions, financial costs, etc.). Thus the role of engineers is critical as they have
a responsibility to design safe, cost effective and sustainable transport solutions
which cause minimum pollution. Engineers can help reduce collisions on roads for
example by reducing speeds in urban areas. The risk of death is approximately
four times higher when a pedestrian is hit at 40mph than at 30mph,(Christie,
2015; Richards, 2010). Environmental modification and speed management
(through use of 20 mph zones), and area wide engineering to reduce speed and
volume of traffic are other intervention approaches recommended by Christie, as
well as behavioural changes through regulation, education, enforcement.
In conclusion, the distributional impacts of transport have been discussed, and the
negative impacts of transport on peoples lives have been highlighted, which
include, a lack of safety and security, climate change, noise and air pollution and
death and injuries caused by collisions. The role of engineers has also been
discussed and some solutions to help mitigate negative impacts have also been
stated including, good design to ensure safety, affordability, minimise pollution
and for roads safety solutions mentioned range from the importance of limiting
speeds to environmental modification and behavioural change.

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Ahsan Khan

SN: 13097496

07/10/2015

Bibliography
1. Christie, D. N. (2015, February 16). Distributional impacts of transport. London,
England: Centre for Transport Studies, UCL.
2. Van Dender, K., & Crist, P. (2009, May). Policy instruments to limit negative
environmental impacts from increased international transport An economic
perspective. (Joint Transport Research Centre of the OECD and the International
Transport Forum) Retrieved March 1, 2015, from OECD Library: http://www.oecdilibrary.org/docserver/download/5ksgq0dn0mnt.pdf?
expires=1425219727&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=3809F1D8F445651060
3F0258FE05777A

Word count (excluding bibliography), but including references and

quotations within the essay = 550 words. (500 + 10%)

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