Report: Intersectoral Needs From A National Survey on Transportation Equity

Intersectoral Needs From A National Survey

The National Survey working group of the Mobilizing Justice Partnership convened a workshop of 66 stakeholders to discuss the major themes of a planned national survey addressing transportation related social exclusion and mobility justice.  At the workshop, which took place over zoom on November 5, 2021, participants rotated between five breakout rooms on different themes to quietly brainstorm and then discuss answers to questions on what the national survey should ask about. 

Key Findings

Participants brainstormed 938 responses in Mentimeter, and raised another 140 points in breakout discussions. Workshop organizers coded Mentimeter comments into key topics. The distribution of these topics across all breakouts is presented in Figure 1 below.

The most commonly raised issues pertained to safety (16% of comments), followed by access to destinations (15%), public transit (13%), and access to or wellbeing outcomes related to social, cultural and religious activities (13%). 

Figure 1: Synthesis of topics raised across workshop breakouts

Participants were also prompted to discuss how they would use survey data on the major workshop themes.  MJ partners are primarily interested in the survey as a tool to deepen their own understanding of transportation inequities and identify gaps in their own thinking (27.7% percent of responses). 

Recommendations for the National Survey

1. Develop an equitable co-creation process and engagement plan prior to taking further steps on survey development.
2. Ensure adequate contextual variables are gathered in the survey to accurately represent complex topics like excess and suppressed travel.
3. Address how the season of survey deployment will influence respondents’ perceptions of a broad range of issues, from mobility barriers to suppressed travel. 
4. The survey should be resourced to enable deployment in many languages. 
5. Survey design should not be biased by assumptions that certain barriers or aspirations are only relevant to certain people. 
6. Several concepts require further refinement: the project may need to consider suppressed activity participation, rather than just travel; infrastructure aspirations raised by the survey may need to be calibrated to what partners can practicably deliver (i.e., not self-driving private cars). 

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Suggested Citation

Mobilizing Justice. 2021. Intersectoral Needs From A National Survey on Transportation Equity.