As the year draws to an end I’m now familiar with the term ‘black elephant’ (h/t Anna Rothnie) and realise that it very aptly represents digital accessibility when it comes to transport planning and appraisal. A black elephant is something visible to everyone but no one wants to deal with it so they pretend it’s not there.

Digital accessibility must be distinguished from (only) digital connectivity. I would explain as follows:

Digital connectivity is the equivalent to the roads existing and cars being available to purchase and drive.

Digital accessibility is equivalent to having the means to afford to own a car, knowing how to drive and having somewhere to go for worthwhile economic activity.

Nearly a quarter of a century ago the Government of the day in its 10 Year Plan for transport noted that “the likely effects of increasing Internet use on transport and work patterns are still uncertain, but potentially profound, and will need to be monitored closely”. Good call! It’s just that the ‘monitored closely [and better understood]’ bit got rather neglected.

Digital accessibility is a big part of society now – it is surely too big to ignore in terms of how we examine, plan for, and invest in, the future?

Yet we seem to have done quite a good job of treating it like a black elephant it in our transport modelling and appraisal. Could one of the reasons for this be that digital accessibility is ‘too hot to handle’? Anyone who has taken a close look at making sense of it and of how it inter-relates with transport and land-use will appreciate that ITS COMPLICATED and continuously evolving. Meanwhile, the establishment marches on with its false precision when it comes to contemplating the future of the transport system and its use.

It’s as if we don’t have the right mindset and wherewithall to get to grips with the changing world we live in so as to suitably inform decision making and investment. We really need to give more attention to being approximately right than precisely wrong.

I would love to see more effort going into using our existing modelling tools in tandem with the growing familiarity with scenario planning to explore digital accessibility (by proxy). I’d like to see a series of example transport and non-transport interventions explored analytically in terms of digitial accessibility’s possible impacts.

I can only see a future where digital accessibility plays a bigger part in our lives (unless extreme destabilising futures for society emerge – ah, ok, that’s possible!!) so shouldn’t we have a better handle on what it means for our investments?

Anyway, if like me you’re exhausted and now limping out of work mode into Christmas then I doubt you have time right now to deliberate digital accessibility.

The slides below are ones I presented this week in case of interest. Thanks to Stephen Cragg and Kiron Chatterjee for your wise input.

#tripleaccessplanning#digitalaccessibility#digitalaccess