1. TRANSIT PURPOSE: MOBILITY
VS ACCESSIBILITY
Assignment-2
AR. AKANKSHA SINGH
SUSHANT SCHOOL OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE
IST SEM, M.ARCH
illiam Shakespeareonce said:
''All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,''
and mobility comes to action when in order
to play that role movement of anything
frompoint A to B is required. So whatis
mobility?
According to Todd Litman of the Victoria
TransportPolicy Institute: ''Mobility refers
to the movement of people or goods. It
assumes that “travel” means person- or
ton-miles, “trip” means person- or freight-
vehicle trip. Itassumes that any increase in
travel mileage or speed benefits society''.
In other words mobility is your freedomto
move right now, and yes I agree Mobility is
absolutely necessary and desirable, the
world has become a small place because of
the transportation technology
advancements. but movement without
purposedoes not fulfill the basic purposeof
this shiftfrom a place to another, so what is
the main purposeof transport? reaching
the destination is the aim, hence access
comes into action. Accessibility is allowing
people or their commodities to reach the
destinations they choose as efficiently and
easily as possibleand also accessibility is
something that is easily entered,
approached, attained , or obtainable .
Greater accessibility is also good for society
w

2. and cities because in the end transit system
is for the people, by the people and of the
people, I can say frommy personal
experience that the purposeof
transportation is not mere movement but is
trip completion so to say. Eor instance, in
order to come to University frommy homeI
have to travel 65.7kmand during my
journey I take differentmodes of transport
like frommy home to Vaishalimetro station
I take para- transit then at Rajiv Chock I take
yellow line to Huda metro station then from
there I again take para-transitto my
university. This journey drains my energy by
the time I reach my university, and
sometimes also leaves me irritated,
sometimes traffic leads to delay which
results in loss of production, wasted time,
higher risk of accidents, morepollution. As
a result unhappy users, which results in
unhappy society. So, the main focus should
be on improving the journey and increasing
accessibility to transportation and
accessibility to destinations.
Mobility and Accessibility - these two terms
are interlinked but are not same, mobility
and accessibility are a crucial part of the
transit systemand the problems arises in
the transportsystembecausewedon't
realize that reaching the destination is as
important as the journey. hencethere is no
value of journey withoutdestination and
reaching destination is daydreaming
without participating in a journey. and
something wedon't realize is simply adding
transportation modes to an existing built
environmentwill not solveany problem
related to transportation system and this is
not necessarily increasing mobility or
accessibility becauseIf the provided
transportation modes let's say buses run
empty, and bicycle paths go unused, the
provision of these alternative modes
provides neither greater mobility nor
greater access. Thus, a crucial question to
be asked is what transportation modes
need to be in what places and at what times.
Not all modes arecreated, or function,
equally. Placement of the inappropriate
transit modes in the place where they are
less needed may compromisethe healthy
development of communities.
ok then the ultimate aim of the transit
systemoughtto be access: allowing people
to reach the destinations they chooseas
efficiently as possible, the above can be
achieved either through granting mobility,
by whatever mode is mostappropriatefor
the particular case, or by reducing the
distance between destinations. With the
small exception of traveling for the
enjoymentof traveling, mobility is only a
means to an end, constraints on physical
movement and measures to increases
motor vehicle system, capacity and speed,
parking and road facility improvements,
transit and ride sharing improvement, high
speed train and intermodal connections and
to improve motorized transportwith more
modest consideration of walking cycling can

3. be some solutions to the issues related to
mobility.
transportproblemand solution in terms of
accessibility areany barrier, costor risk
that prevents people fromreaching desired
opportunities. And possiblesolution can be
traffic improvements, mobility
substitutes( telecommunications), mobility
improvements(delivery charges) more
accessible land use.
So, now the conclusion is Mobility provides
access, but it is not access. Also,
accessibility does not providemobility and
the aim of transitis achieved through a
balanced combination of access and
mobility.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SAMUEL STALEY's blog
A1E09: Committee on Accessible
Transportation and Mobility Chair: S. Ling
Suen
http://humantransit.org/2011/01/transits-
product-mobility-or-access.html
Crane, R.,Crepeau, R. (1998). “Does
neighborhood design influence travel?: A
behavioralanalysis of travel diary and GIS
data.” Transportation Research PartD:
Transportand Environment3(4): 225-238.