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AbstractInequality is important, both for its own sake and for its political, social, and economic implications. However, measuring inequality is not straightforward, as it requires decisions to be made on the variable, population, and distributional characteristics of interest. These decisions will naturally influence the conclusions that are drawn so they must be closely linked to an underlying purpose, which is ultimately defined by a social welfare function. This paper outlines important considerations when making each of these decisions, before surveying recent advances in measuring inequality and suggesting avenues for future work.

Social and economic inequalities have sharpened in the late 20th century. During this period, Europe has witnessed a rising unemployment rate, a declining wages for the least qualified workers, a slowing of income growth, and an increasing gap between the richest and the poorest. Based on the hypothesis of the relation between socio-economic condition and mobility behaviour, it is necessary to ask how these socio-economic inequalities manifest themselves in transportation: does a rise in income inequality lead to a rise in transportation inequality and mobility practice inequality? This question is particularly relevant today as some European countries are facing high socio-economic inequalities following the financial crisis that started in 2008. Using results from transport, car ownership and mobility surveys as well as household surveys from the Paris (Île-de-France) region between eighties and late nineties, this paper tries to answer this question. The results show how inequalities in transportation and mobility practice have decreased during the period in spite of an increase in income inequalities. We find that the evolution of socio-economic inequality, most
specifically income inequality was simply one of the determining factors of the evolution of inequalities in transportation and mobility practice. In fact, the most important role in that evolution is not played by the evolution of income inequality but by the evolution of elasticity between transportation and income. Reducing the effects of this elasticity should be the main target of transport policies to diminish inequality in transportation and mobility practice. (author's abstract)