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Accessibility, how it is understood by planners and experienced by citizens : Planners' and citizens' perceptions of how Demand Responsive Transport can increase accessibility in suburban areas.

Accessibility is a well-established concept that appears frequently in urban planning. It refers to the ability of citizens to actively participate in society. Nevertheless, inaccessibility is experienced in many places, which can lead to exclusion of citizens. Against this background, this master's thesis aims to center on the concept of accessibility and examine it from two perspectives - strategic urban planners and individuals. The thesis examines how accessibility is interpreted by strategic urban planners in the two suburban municipalities of Botkyrka and Huddinge and how it is experienced by a group of “low-skilled” workers in an area where there are identified shortcomings in traffic planning. The thesis studies how this group experiences their accessibility in their daily commute before and after they test a Demand-Responsive Transport (DRT) service. The theoretical framework consists of the concepts of accessibility strategies, transport and accessibility, objective accessibility, perceived accessibility, accessibility barriers and social exclusion, which are used to analyze the two different perspectives. The results show that strategic planners view accessibility as the relationship between citizens and destination points, and that inaccessible places are mainly associated with rural or sparsely populated areas. At the same time, the thesis shows that the workers experience inaccessibility in their daily trips, despite living in surrounding municipalities. The results also show the identified potentials and risks of DRT in suburban environments from the perspective of both strategic planners and individuals. The results show that DRT reduced travel times for the workers. Furthermore, perspectives such as reliability, safety and equity are highlighted as important aspects in the design of DRT services.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:liu-195572
Date January 2023
CreatorsReinhardt, Albin
PublisherLinköpings universitet, Tema teknik och social förändring
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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