Social Inclusion and Transport Policy in Melbourne, Curitiba and the United Kingdom

Traditionally transport disadvantage, when it has been considered, has been approached as urban studies, economic or environmental studies phenomenon. Transport policies have been advanced as ways of improving citizens lives through increased amenity, reducing the cost of congestion and reducing carbon footprints. Although the social policy effects of transport were always present, they have been less explicit.

With more recent attempts to impose a social exclusion narrative on the problems of transportation there is hope that a more holistic understanding of transport policy can emerge.



This paper intends to explore how notions of social inclusion are informing transport policies in two cities and one country – Melbourne (in Australia), Curitiba (in Brazil) and the United Kingdom. These case studies have been chosen because of their different prominence in linking transport policies to notions of social inclusion. The United Kingdom because of a national effort to address social inclusion following the 2003 report, Making the Connections: Transport and Social Exclusion. Melbourne has been chosen as a jurisdiction in which a concerted effort has been made to widen traditional understanding of transport and social policy in the Australian settings beyond notions of accessibility. And Curitiba is prominent because of its decision to place an emphasis on rapid bus, cycling and walking infrastructure contrary to the advice of the International Monetary Fund largely for reasons of social equity.

This paper will focus in particular on the relationship between social inclusion and policies aimed at addressing these two notions. This form of disadvantage and the policy responses in our three cases will be explored, along with not only how effective they have been but also with some reference to notions of difference and the varied impact son different types of recipients of policies aimed at addressing social inclusion.

Social Exclusion and Inclusion

Social exclusion is a term used in many places with subtle different meanings. For some it is synonymous with poverty, others it is inadequate social participation or lack of power. While concepts of poverty, disadvantage and deprivation have a long history the modern use of the term emerged in France to describe people who were excluded from the social insurance system such as the disabled, lone parents and the uninsured unemployed (Buckmaster and Thomas 2009). From France it diffused into the European Union during the 1980s and started to be increasingly recognised in official policy frameworks.

More recently the concept attracted attention in the United Kingdom and became prominent following the election of the Blair Labour Government (1997) and its establishment of the Social Exclusion Unit. Interest in the concept has been slower to develop in Australia (Bradshaw 2003). Only in the last few years has the term come into common usage with the adoption of a range of policies by state and territory governments targeting social inclusion . the establishment, by the newly elected Rudd Government, of structural arrangements including a Social Inclusion Board and a Social Inclusion Unit in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet—as well as a Minister and a Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion (Buckmaster and Thomas 2009).

In Latin America the term has a different genealogy. The roots of the social inclusion dialogue are in the 1960s concepts of marginalisation and the liberation theology movement (Daly and Silver 2008).

While there are a number of definitions of social exclusion (Saunders 2003), conceptually it has been described as the existence of barriers which make it difficult or impossible for people to participate fully in society of obtain a decent standard of living (Social Exclusion Unit 2003). Policies to improve social inclusion not only would seek to address income poverty, but other barriers such as disability, educational opportunity, inadequate housing, ethnicity, unemployment, gender, sexuality, age and transport.

Transport and Social Inclusion

Transport has been a fertile area of inquiry and activity for policy practitioners concerned with social inclusion. Transport was one of the early areas of research for the Blair Governments Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) and its 2003 report, Making the Connections: Final Report on Transport and Social Exclusion. (Social Exclusion Unit 2003) The SEU’s study identified links between a person’s access to transport and their needs for education, employment, access to health and other service and even access to leisure and recreation activities. The SEU argued that to remove these barriers and improve social inclusion through transport policy there is a need to understand how people access key activities and link this with planning and policy to improve accessibility (Stanley and Vella-Brodrick 2009).

The language of social inclusion is not widely known in transport policy elsewhere (with the exception of Australia in recent times). However, there is a concern with similar issues in discourses about transport disadvantage and mobility. In many North American discourses basic mobility is considered a merit good or even a right and includes travel for:

• emergency services
• health care
• basic food and clothing
• education and employment
• access to public services and
• a certain amount of social and recreational activities. (Litman 2003)

There are currently no widely accepted standards to determine adequate levels of social inclusion. Todd Litman has suggested some categories of people who are at risk of being socially excluded:

• Households that do not own an automobile (sometimes called zero-vehicle households).
• People who do not have a drivers license.
• People with significant physical or mental disabilities.
• Low-income households.
• People who are unemployed or underemployed.
• People on social assistance and other programs to help disadvantaged groups.
• People too young to drive, or being elderly (i.e., over 70 years of age).
• Recent immigrants from developing countries

Litman suggests that appropriate policies to address the needs of these groups would focus on automobile dependency, land use accessibility, affordability and mobility options (or transport choice).(Litman 2003) The cities we are examining in this paper will be evaluated with these broad policy options in mind.

Social Inclusion and Social Capital in Transport Policy

Often in policy making fields we find that notions of social inclusion and social capital are confused and used interchangeably (Daly and Silver 2008). At the same time it can be argued that designing policies with social inclusion goals in mind without considering social capital goals would lead to sub optimal social policy (Currie et al. 2007)

This argument suggests that while enhancing social inclusion, and thus reducing social exclusion is a worthy goal, social policy ought to be more ambitious and consider enhancing human happiness and wellbeing(Sen 1985). Drawing on the notions of people’s capabilities, and the unequal distribution of these between individuals, this approach argues that social policy in transport should look beyond removal of barriers, and into approaches that encourage social governance (Hodgson 2003) and address the social determinants of health.

Melbourne, Curitiba and the United Kingdom

The three cities this paper will study are Melbourne, Curitiba and London. They are cities from different parts of the world and of different ages. Melbourne is a 19th century colonial city, Curitiba was founded by Portuguese in 1693, and London is, by northern European standards, an ancient city.


Curitiba
Curitiba is a city of 3.3 million people in southern Brazil. Curitiba is a fast growing, yet fiscally challenged city which has won recognition worldwide for its urban and transport strategies (Brugmann 2009). Its urban structure is based on “well defined structural axes accommodating and channelling the city’s growth…”(Taniguchi 2001) Land within two blocks of the radial axes is zoned for high density.

Figure 1: Radial and circular bus routes in Curitiba. The radial routes are the structural axes where density is encouraged.  Source: (Pienaar et al. 2005)

The backbone of Curitiba transport system is the world’s first Bus Rapid Transit system, which runs along the structural axes shown in figure 1. The main features are that:

• Bus Rapid Transit run down the middle of major roads in dedicated bus only lanes (72 km)
• A fixed fare (equivalent of US $0.40)– once you enter the system you can travel anywhere on it
• Mixture of radial and circular routes
• Cross subsidisation of the longer routes (used by poor people) by shorter routes (used by affluent people)
• The public transport system is financially independent.(Pienaar et al. 2005)

The Bus Rapid Transit system is supported by a series of minibuses which link residential areas with bus stations and extensive walking and cycling paths and facilities (Goodman et al. 2005).

Curitiba, despite this has relatively high car ownership, has achieved 33 percent public transport modal share in the wider metropolitan area. Air pollution is one of the lowest in Brazil and only 10 percent of household incomes is spent on transport.

Policy decisions have been in general made with a economic or environmental frame rather then a social objective in mind. The key issues for the authorities in Curitiba in designing their transport and urban systems has been affordability for the poor, financial sustainability for the city, and environmental performance.

Melbourne

Melbourne is a city of 4 million people in the state of Victoria, Australia. Much of Metropolitan Melbourne is characterised by low density sprawl, with the exception of some inner city suburbs (City of Melbourne 2009). The city’s public transport network consists of trains, trams and buses operated on franchise contracts between the regional government and private operators with service levels set by the government.

Trains and trams service Melbourne from early morning until around midnight 7 days a week. By contrast, Melbourne’s buses have had very poor service levels (Loader and Stanley 2009). Melbourne is also served by an extensive freeway network, which is largely free to access with the exception of two tollways . Public transport mode share has risen from 9.9 percent in 1998/9 to 14.3 percent in 2008/9 (Bus Association of Victoria 2009). Cost to access the public transport system is set by the regional government based on a two zone system with fares set to CPI. Concessions are available to the elderly, low income earners and students that allow them to purchase half price tickets.

Like Curitiba, Melbourne’s urban structure was once radial, but since the advent of the car has become a typical sprawling city. Attempts to build around designated town centres or activity centres have been a feature of multiple planning policies, but all have failed to contain suburbia. Socially vulnerable populations have been largely forced into the outer suburbs, where it is feared the zero car ownership or forced car ownership households are at serious risk of social exclusion (Currie et al. 2009). It is estimated that one in ten households do not own a car and that 3.3 percent of adults feel that they could not get to places they needed to go (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006).

Melbourne has engaged in much public policy reform in transport in recent years. This ranges from public transport franchising, renewed rail extensions, rolling stock upgrades and expansion and the like. This falls into what the current Secretary of the Department of Transport calls the “mass transit agenda”. Along side this is ‘social transit’ where the policy objectives have been to:

• improve service levels in areas of Melbourne which are ‘transport’ poor
• ensure that people in interface suburbs have access to decent public transport and
• provide travel options for people with mobility impairments. (Betts 2007)

Major initiatives in the social policy sphere have been general, such as fare reform (which eliminated zone 3 to make multi zone travel more affordable), introducing concessions for seniors (including free Sunday travel) and students and bus service reform. However most of this activity has been viewed through the prism of transport disadvantage or need to comply with federal disability anti-discrimination legislation. An important exception the rollout of bus services from 2006 (scheduled to continue through to 2011) which has been grounded in social exclusion theory, though explained in social equity terms (Stanley and Vella-Brodrick 2009).

The United Kingdom

As distinct from the cities of Melbourne and Curitiba, in the United Kingdom the central government has taken a much greater role in transport policies. In Melbourne and Curitiba social exclusion concerns have been on the margin – with social policy in transport being driven by discourses of accessibility, affordability and transport disadvantage. In the UK addressing social exclusion is a central policy goal.

The Social Exclusion Unit, established in 1998, identified physical isolation as a regular feature of England’s poorest neighbourhoods (ref) and that access in these areas to basic public and private services was lacking. The SEU found that:

• transport can be a significant barrier to finding a job
• poor transport is linked to young people dropping out of education
• getting to hospital is difficult for those who rely on public transport
• there is a clear link between social class and road traffic accidents and exposure to road and noise pollution from traffic (SEU 2002)

According to this analysis the problem of transport and social exclusion in the UK is linked to:

• Dispersed land patterns
• Draining away of local services and high crime in deprived areas
• Low car availability in low income households
• Declining public transport services
• Rising cost of transport and income constraints
• Exposure to pollution and accidents

An all too brief analysis of the performance of policy shows the following outcomes:

• People continue to move further and further away from essential public and private services (SEU, 2003)
• Services, stores and businesses are continuing to flee highly deprived areas
• 27 percent of the population does not have access to a car – 63 percent of people in the lowest income households
• Minorities are more likely to use public transport to access employment
• Dependency on car use continues to marginalise low income households
• Access to public transport still has considerable gaps
• UK has the third highest public transport fares in the European Union (TRaC, 2000)

Policy initiatives to address these issues include policy action teams in deprived areas , cross agency approaches to poor transport issues, regulatory reform to remove barriers that impede implementation of innovative solutions and a more equitable but less fragmented funding system (Lucas 2002).

Analysis

How explicitly are transport policies addressing social exclusion? We have discovered that in Curitiba and Melbourne transport policy discourses, as relating to social policy goals are dominated by urbanism in Curitiba and a mixture of notions around accessibility and transport disadvantage in Melbourne. However in the UK social exclusion discourses are much more dominant.

The differences between the two types of policy making are apparent. For Melbourne and Curitiba more attention is paid to outcome policy – delivering social transit type outcomes for the poor and marginalised. In the UK much more attention is given towards measuring social exclusion and towards social governance. It is a necessary conclusion of a social exclusion approach that social governance is at the core. For different reasons both Curitiba and Melbourne do not do so well at social governance. For Curitiba the genesis of its strategy occurred during an authoritarian regime which was in power in Brazil, which has led to an emphasis on the importance of leaders and leadership institutions over participation. In Melbourne the diffuse nature of its transport and land use institutions acts as a barrier towards community engagement on transport and land use, and engagement is often combative rather then collaborative.

Evaluating the actual on the ground policies relating to social exclusion against Litman’s list of policy options that are desirable is listed on table 1.

Social Exclusion, Social Transit or something more?

The social exclusion approach of the UK has many attractions, particularly its focus on deprived neighbourhoods and the socially excluded. Its emphasis on social governance is something that could be learnt here in Australia. At the same time the innovative approach of Curitiba, founded on strong planning policies and a search to ensure that transport services are affordable and financially sustainable are worthy from a social policy standpoint.

However, as some commentators have pointed out a focus just on the socially excluded is not enough. An social exclusion plus approach where transport policy focuses on addressing exclusion as well as enhancing wellbeing and community connectedness has been suggested as a direction for social policy in transport to move in (Stanley and Vella-Brodrick 2009). It is a suggestion with much merit.

Table 1: Evaluation of Policy Options for Social Exclusion

	Curitiba	Melbourne	UK
Automobile Dependency - Planning to favour  non car modes - pricing reforms	Considerable Structural axes encourage development along public transport routes.  Road and public space design favours pedestrians and cyclists over roads – largely for social equity reasons	Minimal Planning policies encourage density at train stations, but have failed to be implemented firmly. There is a city congestion tax aimed at long stay car parking places	Mixed Structure plans try to match services, jobs and housing but have not stopped suburbanisation.  London has a congestion charge with several other cities examining the concept.
Land Accessibility - policies that encourage density along PT routes - affordable housing available near employment and services - suitable location of public services - car free planning	Substantial Structural axes encourage development along public transport routes.  Famous for cancelling a major road project and instead building a 20 kilometre walking freeway	Minimal Recent planning policies have encouraged density around train stations with limited success Significant disparities between location of housing and location of jobs Public services largely placed near public transport services, though in outer suburbs this is dependent on bus services (which can be sub standard at times in terms of	Substantial Structure plans try to match services, jobs, transport and housing with mixed success Deprived areas have seen a flight of jobs and business and public services exacerbating social exclusion
Affordability - lower fares for disadvantaged populations - targeted discounts, including those for access to non PT services - car sharing and pay as you go registration schemes - affordable housing located in accessible areas	Substantial Fixed, low fare to access public transport.  Limited discounts because of low fare	Mixed Reduced fare zones and costs.  Concession reform has extended range of concessions for PT.  Some car sharing schemes (private sector).  Affordable housing is not housed in accessible areas.	Mixed Effort has been made to keep fares low but franchising of public transport services, esp Buses has seen substantial fare increases. Extensive discounts for the young and old
Mobility Options - transit service improvements - accessibility for disabled and frail populations - pedestrian and cycling improvements - travel information widely available - car pooling programs - security on public transport - taxi services - school bus programs - marketing strategies	Substantial BRT and associated local services provides substantial access.  Accessibility is built into the system and pedestrian and cycling movements are prioritised.	Improving PT service improvements have been incremental but widespread for bus services – less so for rail.  Required to be accessible for disabled by 2020 but likely to miss target.  Travel information is widely available but not in all formats.  Car pooling programs are new and small.  Security on public transport is good.  Taxi’s are used by people too ill to use PT under a govt program	Improving Continued improvement has been encouraged, especially with bus services in rural and deprived areas. Accessibility is improving with retrofit of buses (for low floor options), rail and trams.  Demand responsive bus and taxi services are widely available

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