Co-producing space-time accessibility: a transdisciplinary approach to enhancing transportation justice

Journal article

Accessibility analysis has long been used to gauge inequalities and inequities in people's ability to reach employment, education, greenspaces, and other activity locations. This paper proposes that the contributions that accessibility analysis makes to addressing transportation justice can be enhanced if the knowledge production processes that generate accessibility outcomes are adapted. It therefore introduces a transdisciplinary approach to co-produced space-time accessibility measurement, CoProSTAM, in which experiential, practitioner, and academic knowers collaborate closely. CoProSTAM has been developed on the basis of our collaboration between academic researchers, a collective of low-income women (Dimú), and local policymakers in the Medellin metropolitan area in Colombia. The paper also presents an empirical application which shows how accessibility varies according to the location of publicly available childcare facilities, with profound implications for the livelihoods and opportunities for healthy living among low-income women in the Global South. By building on our CoProSTAM approach, accessibility researchers will be able to reduce the epistemic injustices that are embedded in much transportation research and foster new ways of understanding inequalities in accessibility in urban and peri-urban areas.

Authors: Orjuela, JP; Schwanen, T; Giraldo, D; Morales, N; Ruda, N

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: Journal of Transport Geography
• Volume: 131
• Issue: 104511
• Publication date: 2025-12-18
• Acceptance date: 2025-12-03
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2025.104511
• EISSN: 1873-1236
• ISSN: 0966-6923
• Language: English
• Keywords: transportation justice; epistemic justice; accessibility analysis; space-time accessibility; co-production; gender; Colombia