This article is the first of two papers that engage critically and productively
with the relationship between the socio-economic transformations of cities, the
differentiation of vulnerable groups within urban space and the distribution of
transport services. This article undertakes a comprehensive review of the major
conceptual and methodological approaches by which scholars and policy
researchers have sought to address the connection between social disadvantage
and access to transport. The article critically assesses the relative merits of
various spatial analytical methodologies in illuminating social-transport links.
The study finds that there is a need for greater sophistication in the use of
analytical methods in transport research as well as an imperative for greater
sensitivity to social differentiation within urban areas and relative to
infrastructure and services. The article concludes by developing a method for
combining spatial social and transport service data that is then deployed in the
empirical case study reported in the second paper