Measuring disparities in air transport access across Europe: an inequality, vulnerability and dependence approach

Air transport networks tend to develop in accordance with underlying economic activity and links. This relationship in Europe has not developed entirely evenly or consistently, however, with some regional population centres having comparatively low levels of access to air transport services and global markets. This study focusses on air transport access inequality across 1,388 regions in Europe using the 20:20 ratio, a commonly used indicator in macroeconomic income inequality studies. For those regions in the bottom 5% in terms of degree centrality (using 2019 baseline data) an in-depth vulnerability, dependence and pandemic impact analysis was performed to determine the regions that may represent strong cases for state intervention to ensure continued access to a base level of essential air services. The stepwise methodological framework developed in this research could be used as a prioritisation tool by industry and policy stakeholders, most notably in the context of scarce public resources, which is a typical characteristic in Europe. The highest levels of inequality, vulnerability, dependence and pandemic impact were found in some Spanish, and Finnish regions.

WARNOCK-SMITH David;  CHRISTIDIS Panayotis;  DZIEDZIC Marcin; 

2022-12-13

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

JRC127815

0965-8564 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856422002993,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC127815,   

10.1016/j.tra.2022.11.016 (online),