Editorial in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice

Social equity is a concept that has become relevant in transport investment assessment in recent years. Previous literature has shown that equity assessment is crucial in transport planning and infrastructure investment for identifying their impacts on the society and the environment. One of the main challenges for assessing equity in the transport domain is to define the costs and benefits for different groups of the population. In general, public transport services, especially if inclusive, are chosen by more vulnerable people while high income people tend to travel more by private modes.

The manuscripts published in this SI represent only a small contribution on the research on this topic. The Guest Editors think that there is still a lot to investigate about HSR and the equity issue, and many questions remain unsolved; the state-of-the art (in terms of qualitative and quantitative methods) has not yet been reached. There is a need to get an in-depth understanding about the motivations why HSR is still not an inclusive transport alternative, and to identify stimulating lessons and directions for future research to drive the knowledge about HSR and social equity into practice for those countries where these services exist. We hope that this SI will encourage a new wave of research in this direction, extending the analysis also into other countries.