An increasing interest in social exclusion related to transport
has seen the (re-) emergence of transport disadvantage as a focus
of contemporary transport research and policy (Church et al.,
2000), e.g. Social Exclusion Unit (2003). A major challenge for both
researchers and practitioners alike is the robustness of definitions
and research method associated with transport disadvantage. Conventional
methods identify transport disadvantage in terms of
location, e.g. Department for Transport (2006), poor access to
mobility, e.g. Currie (2009) and the social, physical and psychological
characteristics which limit mobility for particular groups, e.g.
Social Exclusion Unit (2003). When applied these terms are necessarily
generalisations and can be overly prescriptive and simplistic,
e.g. Hine and Mitchell (2003) and Hine and Grieco (2003) have
identified weakness in the adoption of location-based definitions
of transport disadvantage since there are many examples of social
groups who have significant transport problems with no particular
spatial concentration.