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University of Oxford
School of Geography and the Environment

 School of Geography and the Environment

IGS: Current and Recent Graduate Research

Eda Beyazit

Fair distribution of socio-economic benefits of transport investments

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Academic Profile

Eda is a D.Phil. student at the School of Geography and the Environment. Eda has a BSc in City and Regional Planning from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and MSc in Urban Planning from Istanbul Technical University where she has also worked as a research assistant since 2006. Her research interests include transport geographies, social justice, participatory urban planning and urban design. Eda is a member of the World Carfree Network Steering Committee.

Awards
  • 2008 - 4 year Studentship, awarded by Turkish Higher Education Institute.
  • 2008 - Master Thesis Award, in the Honour of Prof. Kemal Ahmet Aru, Istanbul Technical University, City and Regional Planning Department.

Current Research

The last two decades have witnessed a growing interest in understanding social justice in transport. There has been a variety of theoretical and practical studies which discussed issues such as social exclusion, travel poverty, winners / losers in transport and public participation in decision making processes for transport projects. Despite moving towards a broader understanding of the effects of transport on societies, little work has been done on the distributive effects of transport. Following the contemporary thought in social justice developed by philosophers and economists including John Rawls, Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum and employing traditional methods used in transport geography in assessing justice, the study aims to understand whether the effects of transport investments can be distributed fairly among the society. Engaging with the concepts such as quality of life, capabilities, opportunities, functionings, freedoms of individuals and their willingness to participate in decision making processes, the study poses a group of questions:

  • What are the socio-economic benefits of transport investments?
  • To what extent can transport investments fairly distribute these benefits that they generate?
  • Do they benefit certain social groups within the cities and/or affect the others negatively?
  • What are the tools to measure the distributional impacts of transport investments on different social groups and geographies?
  • Furthermore, how does transport planning reformulate itself with the aim of more fair distribution of the surplus it creates through new investments?

Publications

Conferences
  • Beyazit, E. (2011) Transport Infrastructure and Equality: The case of Istanbul Metro. RGS - IBG Annual Conference, London, 31 August - 2 September 2011.
  • Beyazit, E. (2011) (Un)equal mobilities in Istanbul: an analytical approach to understanding the relationships between transport infrastructure, mobility and equality within urban areas. Universities' Transport Studies Group (UTSG) 43rd Annual Conference, 5-7 January 2011, Open University, Milton Keynes.
  • Beyazit, E. (2009) Distribution of transport benefits: a social justice approach in transport. RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference, 7 March, University of Plymouth.
  • Beyazit, E. (2008) Engineering public transit links for pedestrian use. Rethinking Mobility, Rediscovering Proximity, Towards Carfree Cities VIII, 16-20 June, Portland, Oregon, USA.
  • Bora, M. and Beyazit, E. (2007) Sustainability and car-passion in Istanbul - the most wonderful car-parking places of the world in the central areas of Istanbul. Building a Livable Future in a Changing Climate, Towards Carfree Cities VII, 27-31 August, Istanbul.