Towards Reducing School Segregation by Intervening on Transportation Networks

Dimitris Michailidis, Mayesha Tasnim, Sennay Ghebreab, Fernando P. Santos

Abstract: Urban segregation is a complex phenomenon associated with different forms of social inequality. Segregation is reflected in parents’ school preferences, especially in context of free school choice modes. Studies have shown that parents consider both distance and demographic composition when selecting schools for their children, potentially exacerbating levels of residential segregation. This raises the question of how intervening on transit networks—thereby affecting school accessibility to citizens belonging to different groups—can alleviate spatial segregation. In this work-in-progress paper, we propose a new agent-based model to explore this question. Conducting experiments in synthetic and real-life scenarios, we show that improving access to schools via transport network interventions can lead to a reduction in school segregation over time. The mathematical framework we propose provides the basis to simulate, in the future, how the dynamics of citizens preferences, school capacity and public transportation availability might contribute to patterns of residential segregation.