Distributive justice in transport is concerned with the distribution of accessibility; the ‘good’ with social meaning. Transport and land use systems and the people interacting with said systems condition the way in which this good is distributed. It has been argued that a means of ensuring a fair distribution is to agree upon and provide a basic level of accessibility in society. Terms such as ‘accessibility for all’ permeate different levels of policymaking. Yet there is little concrete guidance as to how such goals should be achieved. The arguments set out in Martens inform the preparation guidance for a basic level of accessibility. With this study, we aim to investigate the movements towards and developments in the implementation of the same. With this study we examine if and how a certain level of accessibility to services can be guaranteed, how existing definitions and operationalisations compare to and deviate from Martens’ conceptualisation, and how the definition of a basic level of provision could translate into a basic level of accessibility, or vice versa. We focus on the case of Sweden, and in particular the regions of Stockholm, Västra Götaland and Skåne. We compare the policy developments to those of cases elsewhere in Europe (Flanders, Belgium and different parts of the UK). We draw on literature and empirical material in the form of policy documents and semi-structured interviews. The working analytical framework is reflexive. Results indicate that existing policies do not necessarily strive to provide what can be termed a basic level of accessibility but are instead steered towards providing ‘potential mobility’, and are framed as goals rather than standards. Several predominant themes emerge from the preliminary analyses.