Transport poverty in Haarlemmermeer and Zoetermeer, the Netherlands: the 'inside versus outside perspective' of reality?

Abstract

Transport poverty (TP) negatively impacts an individual’s ability to participate in society, making it a socially relevant issue regarding which further research is needed. Despite their relevance, ‘transport poor’ are often not visible as such in the statistics. The issue is multi-faceted, as its causes and consequences can lie within and beyond the mobility domain. In the Netherlands, the scientific as well as the political world are still exploring TP as of now. Research on the matter only started to be systematically conducted just over ten years ago. There is no clear view yet of how and where TP manifests in the Netherlands. This makes it hard for governments and authorities to create workable, effective policies on it. In 2019, the Dutch national statistics and environmental assessment agency formulated an indicator ‘risk of TP’, aiming to give a first insight to the issue. However, this indicator does not include individual experience and local context, although both are important to TP.

Therefore, the main objective of this research is to juxtapose the reality of TP the way experts and government officials perceive it, with the experienced dimension on the part of individuals. The research group concerns persons who are arguably at risk of TP according to the CBS/PBL risk indicator. And, as women’s mobility patterns and experiences differ from men’s; job status has shown to be influential on TP; and suburban regions in the Netherlands have not been researched as much as the biggest cities or rural areas have, this specific ‘niche’ group was selected: women with a distance to the labour market (non-working; no full-time, paid job), living in suburban municipalities in the Netherlands. The main question is thus as follows: “To what extent are the perceived and experienced reality of the risk of transport poverty of nonworking women, living in Haarlemmermeer or Zoetermeer, consistent?”

Firstly, the notion of ‘risk of TP’ and currently relevant policies on the topic were explored by expert interviews and desk research. The (policy) desk research was in addition to the local and regional government interviews that were conducted to investigate the current attitudes of (governmental) authorities on the issue. Then, importantly, in-depth interviews followed with the target group: non-working women in suburban Dutch areas. Using the NVP database, the sample was selected on the aforementioned characteristics (N=15), and (after sample validation) approached to participate. Interviewees (n=6) were asked about experiences regarding living environment, mobility situation, and capabilities.

However there is some variation in the perception of TP, the general understanding of the issue was found to be somewhat similar between the in- and outside view. The risk indicator was a good enough ‘lens’ as a means to find people who are vulnerable– but it does not tell the full story. In practice, the navigation of either perspective showed a need for action. An institutional culture may be needed, to finetune policies to people’s needs. Governments ought to keep in contact with their people and the local context. Most importantly through research- and policy actions on TP; and listening to the people’s voices, enabling policy- and decision makers to place oneself in others’ shoes. Future research could explore different sample (sources) -in order to gather people who are more atrisk of TP than the sample of this study; and specific research methods -in order to test the perception of transport poverty on other groups- whilst using a similar set-up as this study.