Locating and quantifying public transport provision with respect to social need in Canberra, Australia

This paper identifies vulnerable, transport-poor populations in the Canberra Metropolitan Region, and in doing so, makes two significant contributions to the literature. The first contribution is methodological, advancing accessibility indicators compared with previous attempts in the literature. The second contribution is policy-relevant, identifying significant spatial gap of service in Queanbeyan, east of Canberra. This gap appears to be associated with the ACT–NSW state border. The findings are consistent with similar research projects in Australia; however, this particular research presents an example of transport disadvantage arising from governance, rather than from any particular social-spatial relationship to the configuration of the city. The findings suggest that public policy and public transport planning does not yet effectively reach across the state border.