Relationship between Accessibility to Transport Network and Spatial Justice: A review of the literature

Spatial justice is pursued in two main approaches of spatial distribution and decision-making processes. In the first approach, the most important issue for researchers is access to transportation. Accessibility is a very important concept; Because it connects the consequences of transportation and other dimensions of planning like an axis. The multidimensionality of its accessibility indicates the complexity of its concept, and on the other hand, the conceptualization complicates its relationship with spatial justice. A relationship that has attracted a lot of attention in the background of research and applied studies with emphasis on analysis methods, but the necessary emphasis on the theoretical and philosophical foundations of theoretical approaches has not been much considered by researchers. This has led to two types of issues: extreme specialization and lack of attention to the interdisciplinary nature of the relationship between justice and accessibility, or excessive simplification with a binary perspective on accessibility. In this research, this relationship has been tried to be conceptualized according to theoretical and philosophical foundations in the theoretical literature.

In the first period, access is related to justice through the concept of social inclusion, but in the second period, they distribute infrastructure by horizontal and vertical equity in the content approach, and finally in the third period, a procedural approach is formed by criticizing the philosophical foundations of the content approach. The principles of the content approach can be considered as utilitarianism, egalitarianism, Rawlsian principle, minimum floor, maximum interval, and equal quotas; While Martens in his theory considers the principles of need, maximum maximization, and sufficiency. In the content approach, the first challenge is the sufficient capacity of the transportation system, which due to the two problematic components of demand forecasting and cost-benefit analysis in this approach leads to mobility-centeredness. In the procedural approach, the main and most political step is to set satisfaction thresholds, which can cause complexity and create problems in practice. Summarizing these two approaches, it can be concluded that accessibility is a goal for measuring spatial justice, which is measured through the tools of connectivity, proximity, and mobility.