Social hållbarhet i kollektivtrafikplanering : planeringsaktörers förhållningssätt och inkludering av sociala perspektiv. En studie av Metrobussystemet i storstadsområdet Göteborg

Sammanfattning: The social sustainability sphere is often described as overshadowed by the economic and ecological sustainability spheres, but has recently gained increasingly more attention both in research and the practicality of planning. Transport and public transportation is an essential component in people’s abilities to appropriate their rights of participation in society and therefore in the process towards a social sustainable development. Generally, public transportation tends to be seen as something good. However, it could also be a causer of negative consequences such as creating barriers as well as act conducive to society’s increasing mobility gap, depending on how it is planned. Factors like gender, ethnicity, social class, sexuality, physical ability could all springhead restrictions of mobility which is a source of inequity. Inequity within the transport system could result in transport-related social exclusion, which means that some people are hampered from participation in the economic, social and political life when it is demanded and desired. The purpose of this thesis is to widen the understanding of how actors of public transport planning relate to social sustainability and in which ways social sustainability is included in present-day planning. This by conducting a study of the on-going planning of a new bus rapid transit system in Greater Gothenburg. The gathered empirical material consists of interviews, conducted with planning actors of different relations to the BRT-system that goes by the name Metrobuss. According to the interviewed, the Metrobuss system is meant to act as linkage within the city as well as to better connect the city to the rest of Greater Gothenburg. Shorter travel time, increased frequency and a transferral of car users to public transport is described as important objectives for the Metrobuss. We have been able to discern that the maturity and the understanding of the social sustainability issues are slowly gaining ground. We can, however, discern a variation of perspective in who is responsible for the inclusion of the issues. The perception of what can be affected and what affects also differ, where a certain ignorance of public transport’s social consequences sometimes can be distinguished. We have been able to see how the negative social consequences of transportation have not been acknowledged to the same extent as its negative consequences for the ecological dimension. Which correlates to how the social sustainability perspective also has been given less room in planning.