Assessing justice in sustainable mobility transitions: narratives from transport policies in Jakarta

Despite the recent growing concern for justice in the sustainable mobility transition, individuals’ experiences of injustice remain inadvertently neglected in favour of maximising the common good for society. As a result, identifying and assessing injustices remain elusive and tricky to operationalise into actionable policy. This article proposes an analytic and evaluation framework for capturing different narratives of injustice resulting from three transport policies aiming for a sustainable mobility transition in Jakarta: (1) traffic restriction policy, (2) integrated public transport, and (3) improvement of walking and cycling infrastructures. Using content analysis of news media to identify how these policies are perceived by and affect various segments of the population, our findings revealed that a broader scope of injustice is experienced by the low-income populace, including those with ‘forced’ motorcycle ownership and captive public transport users. These individualised injustices can result from policies aiming to improve the overall transport condition, claiming sustainable mobility values. Further, our proposed framework highlights shortcomings of current urban and transport planning assessments, which tend to quantify how justice ought to be distributed. The article concludes with policy insights to address transport injustices in Jakarta and other growing Asian metropolises facing a widening socio-economic inequality.