Belgium and Greece diverge on embedding equity in regional transport policy

Regional areas across Europe continue to face persistent accessibility deficits and heavy car dependence, even as sustainable mobility climbs national agendas. A review published in SN Social Sciences on 24 October 2026 examines how two very different European policy regimes translate ambitions about accessibility and equity into formal transport planning documents, comparing Wallonia in Belgium with the neighbouring Greek regions of Central Macedonia and Eastern Macedonia and Thrace. The study, authored by Stefanos Tsigdinos and Sara Tori, finds that both systems articulate ambitious accessibility and sustainability goals but only partially integrate transport equity in a substantive way.

The research employs qualitative policy document analysis of strategic transport and mobility plans in both countries. Rather than measuring travel behaviour directly, the authors scrutinised how policy texts frame and operationalise seven analytical dimensions: accessibility, equity, territorial cohesion, policy integration, spatial and temporal framing, modal priorities and car dependence, and governance and institutional coordination. This approach reveals how abstract principles such as fairness and cohesion are actually written into the plans that guide investment in roads, rail and regional public transport.

The comparison exposes a striking asymmetry in emphasis. Greek documents deploy strong language around territorial cohesion and spatial equity, yet remain dominated by road- and connectivity-oriented measures, indicating that the equity rhetoric is not matched by a shift away from car-centred planning. Walloon documents, by contrast, embed clearer modal-shift and climate targets, with cycling and rail positioned as central pillars of regional mobility. However, the Belgian plans tend to treat equity only implicitly, with limited targeting of regional transport poverty.

According to the analysis, governance and institutional organisation emerges as a pivotal factor shaping these differences. The authors caution that Belgium’s decentralised form may enhance more operational policy, allowing regional authorities to translate goals into concrete measures, whereas the more centralised Greek planning structure favours broader frameworks that can lack the same operational specificity. This finding suggests that the institutional architecture of transport planning, not merely the stated ambitions within policy texts, conditions whether accessibility and equity objectives are carried through into deliverable programmes.

The study addresses a recognised gap in the literature. While a substantial body of research has examined accessibility and equity in urban areas, far less is known about regional areas and about how these concepts are embedded in formal national and regional transport policy documents. By applying a consistent seven-dimension framework to plans from two countries with contrasting planning traditions, the review offers a structured basis for comparing how these policy regimes articulate, and partially realise, sustainable mobility goals outside metropolitan contexts.

The authors position their findings as critical input for aligning national and regional transport strategies with overarching European Union cohesion and sustainability goals. The analysis implies that a policy regime can achieve strong sustainability framing, as in Wallonia’s modal-shift and climate targets, or strong territorial equity language, as in the Greek regions, without necessarily combining the two. For regional policymakers in the studied cases, the comparison highlights the risk that ambitious declarations on accessibility and cohesion may remain rhetorical if they are not anchored in modal priorities that reduce car dependence and in measures that explicitly target transport equity.

As a qualitative document analysis, the review characterises what strategic plans say rather than measuring outcomes on the ground, and its conclusions are drawn from the two contrasting cases examined. Even so, it demonstrates a template for interrogating how regional mobility policy embeds equity and sustainability, in a field where persistent accessibility deficits and car dependence continue to challenge the transition toward sustainable and equitable transport systems.

Subject of Research: Future pathways for regional mobility: policy approaches to accessibility and equity in Belgium and Greece

Article Title: Future pathways for regional mobility: policy approaches to accessibility and equity in Belgium and Greece

Article References: Tsigdinos, S., & Tori, S. (2026). Future pathways for regional mobility: policy approaches to accessibility and equity in Belgium and Greece. SN Social Sciences, 6(11), Article 578. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-026-01878-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43545-026-01878-8

Keywords: regional mobility, transport equity, accessibility, Wallonia, Greece, policy document analysis, territorial cohesion, car dependence, sustainable mobility, governance, EU cohesion policy, Future