The Romanian case study is part of a larger study “Transport Poverty: Definitions, Indicators, determinants and mitigation strategies”, commissioned by the DG EMPL, that aims firstly to define and measure transport poverty across EU member states and secondly to look at various mitigating policy measures adopted by the EU countries. Moreover, an indepth and contextualized analysis is conducted on Germany, Poland, Romania and Spain, four of the implementing partner countries.
Based on the existing literature, the definition proposed in this report indicated that “an individual or household is in transport poverty when they do not have (suitable) public or private transport (options) available to them and/or when the transport system limits access to (other) essential goods and services and/or when they have difficulty or are unable to meet the costs of transport”. Moreover, to operationalize the definition, a set of three indicators have been developed: availability, accessibility and affordability. Even though acceptability aspects have been discussed throughout the study, this indicator was not included in the report.
A core component of this EU wide study proposes the measurement of various indicators related to transport poverty across the EU-27, exploring also examples of national good practices. The Romanian case study proceeds in displaying an overview of the Romanian status quo, going from the legal and national policy provisions to the existing data sets that can be used for assessing transport poverty, to local manifestations of vulnerability looking closer to the Cluj-Napoca municipality context. Due to the disparity and limited availability of national datasets, this analysis has exploratory ambitions, it is not exhaustive and articulates policy proposals and recommendations, including in the field of data collection and analysis. Moreover, the focus on Cluj-Napoca aims to initiate a discussion about transport poverty manifestations across municipalities and the role of local authorities in addressing these challenges, especially in the context of the Social Climate Fund.
(Sursa foto: Freepik.com)