Transportation insecurity has important consequences for people’s ability to connect to opportunity and flourish. Everyday we are learning more about what causes this hardship, who is experiencing it, how it is impacting people and communities, as well as what interventions are effectively moving people to transportation security.
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Minnesota Department of Transportation Omnibus Public Opinion Survey
Survey results examining what transportation insecurity looks like in Minnesota, including how it relates to perceptions around the work of MnDOT. Findings show that 26% of Minnesotans experience transportation insecurity.
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Using a split-ballot design to validate an abbreviated categorical measurement scale: An illustration using the Transportation Security Index
In this methodological article published in Survey Practice, the developers of the Transportation Security Index use both content and statistical approaches to identify an abbreviated Transportation Security Index composed of 6 questions (TSI-6). The TSI-6 was then validated using nationally representative data that included a split ballot experiment. The validated TSI-6 successfully reproduces the original, validated TSI-16 but takes less time to complete and identifies fewer (3) categories of transportation insecurity.
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A Portrait of Baltimore
Results show that one third of Baltimore-area residents experienced at least one symptom of transportation insecurity, with residents in the city more likely to experience such symptoms than those in the county. Residents of color were two times more likely to experience at least one symptom than White residents, a pattern that was consistent across the city and the county.
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A Driver in Health Outcomes: Developing Discrete Categories of Transportation Insecurity
A paper published in the American Journal of Epidemiology uses an inductive, mixed methods approach to identify, using the TSI-16, five categories of transportation insecurity (secure, marginal, low, moderate, high). Demonstrating the usefulness of these categories for research and screening, analyses of 2018 nationally representative data demonstrate that there exists different nonparametric associations between transportation insecurity and two distinct health outcomes. Whereas there was a threshold relationship between self-rated health and any level of insecurity, the risk of depressive symptoms showed a non-linear dose-response relationship with severity of transportation insecurity.
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Evaluation of the South Bend’s Free Transportation Benefits Program
In 2021 the City of South Bend, in partnership with the United Way, launched the Community Nonprofit Partner Program (CNPP). An expansion of the city’s Commuter Trust Program, CNPP provides free transportation benefits (bus passes, ride shares) to clients of local social service providers.. An evaluation of the program shows that, among other findings, the transportation insecurity of program participants improved by 19.6% up to six months after enrolling in the program, demonstrating the program’s effectiveness in improving participants’ overall transportation situation.
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Transportation Insecurity in the United States: A Descriptive Portrait
An article published in Socius is the first to document the prevalence of transportation insecurity in the U.S. Findings show that in 2022, 1 in 4 people in the U.S. over the age of 25 experienced transportation insecurity; more than half (53%) of those living below the poverty line did. Beyond poverty, adults who do not own cars, live in urban areas, are younger, have less education, and are non-White experience the greatest transportation insecurity. Correlated analyses confirm these descriptive differences.
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Economic Justice is Disability Justice
Using 2018 nationally representative survey data of adults over 25 in the U.S., findings detailed in a report from the Century Foundation’s Disability Economic Justice Collaborative highlight that people with disabilities were more than twice as likely to experience any transportation insecurity than those without disabilities. Further, while 1 in 6 people with disabilities experienced the most severe form of insecurity, fewer than 1 in 16 people with disabilities did.
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Validating the Sixteen-Item Transportation Security Index in a Nationally Representative Sample: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis
In a follow-up article to their 2018 Survey Practice practice article, in this Survey Practice article the developers of the Transportation Security Index draw upon nationally representative survey data and use confirmatory factor analysis to validate the 16-question Transportation Security Index. Results show that transportation insecurity is a unidimensional condition, experienced both materially and relationally.
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Developing a New Measure of Transportation Insecurity: An Exploratory Factor analysis
A methodological article published in Survey Practice is where the developers of the Transportation Security Index first define the concept of transportation insecurity. Using qualitative research, candidate questions for the index are developed. Using exploratory factor analysis, a preliminary 16-question Transportation Security Index is identified that includes questions tapping into the material and relational symptoms of transportation insecurity.
New Hampshire is one of the fastest-aging states in the country. The TSI is giving us, for the first time, a way to gather local, nuanced data about transportation insecurity and unmet transportation needs, especially as more residents age in place here. That’s going to be essential to effective planning and investment moving forward.
JEN BUTEAU
Impact Consulting, which is using the TSI in a statewide assessment in partnership with the New Hampshire State Commission on Aging.