Equity of transit connectivity in Tennessee cities

Federal and state agencies focus on providing captive users in mobility-vulnerable population groups with access to public transit resources. One challenge to the provision of equitable access is quantifying equity-oriented metrics for public transit service. This paper utilizes an approach that utilizes the available spatial demographic data and transit network characteristics to compute multimodal transit connectivity and equity. This method is exemplified by analyzing transit connectivity for three metropolitan cities in the state of Tennessee in the United States and overlapping that connectivity on demographic data. Results indicate that the distribution of transit services among vulnerable populations varies within and between cities. The case studies illustrate how this methodology can be used by public agencies to assess the performance of transit systems and to identify the distribution of these systems among various groups to improve the equity of transit connectivity.     

Dynamic transit accessibility and transit gap causality analysis

Public Transit Accessibility (PTA) analysis helps transit agencies and planners identify areas in need of transit service improvements and prioritize transit investments. To evaluate the accessibility of existing transit services and identify access gaps, it is critical to accurately estimate travel times between transit stops, which change throughout the day due to transit schedule variations. Commonly used methods in PTA ignore such temporal fluctuation. Moreover, these methods are unable to elucidate the causes of poor PTA. To address these issues, we first implemented an algorithm to effectively compute travel times at multiple departure times throughout the day in order to enable spatiotemporal PTA analysis. A series of indicators that are intuitive to interpret were developed to determine the varying causes of poor PTA and identify areas with immediate needs for improvements. We showcase the analytical framework using a transit network in the State of Utah operated by the Utah Transit Authority. The analysis is based solely on publicly-available open datasets, which makes it generally adaptable to other transit networks. Results can assist transit agencies with identifying areas in need of service improvement and prioritizing future investments.     

Transit Deserts: Equity analysis of public transit accessibility

Areas, where disadvantaged and transit-dependent populations are provided with inadequate amounts of transit supply, can be labeled transit deserts. Exploring transit deserts may help transit agencies improve accessibility to services while improving transit distribution and equity. This study utilizes the concepts of transit demand and transit supply to identify transit deserts in the City of Dallas. The comprehensive public transit accessibility (CPTA) score is introduced to evaluate accessibility to transit and to provide a holistic view of transit supply. While previous studies have primarily used proximity or spatial indicators to describe accessibility, this study utilizes a comprehensive set of spatial and temporal measures (connectivity to the network, connectivity to destinations, service frequency, flexibility, and time efficiency) to estimate accessibility to transit. Overlapping areas of high demand (transit dependency) and low supply (as measured using the CPTA) are then characterized as transit deserts. The CPTA score and its application to the analysis of transit deserts provides a universal framework which can be broadly applied by transit agencies, city officials, and transit stakeholders. The contributions of this study are as follows: first, developing a comprehensive framework to estimate transit supply or accessibility; and second, introducing a methodology for identifying transit deserts.     

Using connectivity for measuring equity in transit provision

This study proposes the assessment of equity in transit provision by using transit connectivity as a comprehensive impedance measure. Transit connectivity considers in-vehicle time, access/egress times, waiting time, service reliability, frequency, and ‘seamless’ transfers along multi-modal paths. In addition, transit connectivity weighs the impedance components according to their relative importance to travelers. The assessment of equity was performed for the multi-modal transit system in the Greater Copenhagen Area, renowned for its transit-oriented finger-plan. The assessment method used a GIS representation of the network (i.e., service lines, timetables, metro stations, train stations, and bus stops), and transit assignment results (i.e., level-of-service times, passenger flows). The assessment method proved effective in calculating location-based and potential-accessibility measures and Gini coefficients of inequality in the Greater Copenhagen Area. Results show that the transit-oriented development contributes to spatial equity with high connectivity in densely populated zones, vertical equity with comparable connectivity in high income and low income zones, inter-generational equity with good connectivity provision for students to higher-education and job opportunities. Also, results show that the north-west ‘finger’ is less equitable with lower connectivity for low population density and lower connectivity to higher-education opportunities regardless of the high number of students.     

The equity impacts of bus rapid transit: A review of the evidence and implications for sustainable transport

The paper offers an analysis of empirical evidence on the equity impacts of operational Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems in the Global South. The focus is on vertical equity, i.e. whether BRT systems achieve progressive benefits for poorer segments of the population. Findings from Africa, Asia, and Latin America all suggest that BRT does offer significant benefits to low-income groups, in terms of travel time and cost savings, access enhancement, and safety and health benefits. However benefits are often skewed toward medium-income users and thus less progressive than they might be. Two primary reasons for this are insufficient spatial coverage and inappropriate fare policies. While many features of BRT potentially allow it to deliver pro-poor outcomes, such outcomes only materialize if BRT implementers pay specific and sustained attention to equity. The paper identifies key issues that need to be addressed to steer BRT implementation toward more socially sustainable outcomes—including better integration with other transit, paratransit, and nonmotorized transport services, and with the housing sector.     

Urban rail operators in Turkey: Organisational reform in transit service provision and the impact on planning,operation and system performance

Many cities around the world have seen efforts to restructure the provision of public transport. While transit authorities as public agencies continue to deliver transit services in some cities, many others have privatised these services, have opened up the market to private operators or have outsourced them to newly founded subsidiaries. The situation is no different in Turkey, where new legislation was enacted in the 1980s enabling local authorities to establish corporate companies under their own agency, and to shift to them the entire responsibility for running certain public transport operations. The motivation is often to increase efficiency, productivity and profitability in these operations, although there is a risk that planning and operation may become fragmented under such organisational reforms, making it difficult to maintain coordination in planning and to ensure the provision of an integrated service. This paper analyses this organisational change in public transport in Turkey, focusing on the planning, operation and performance of urban rail systems in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir.     

Behavioral intentions of public transit passengers—The roles of service quality,perceived value,satisfaction and involvement

Understanding the behavioral intentions of public transit passengers is important, because customer loyalty is seen as a prime determinant of long-term financial performance. This study highlights such behavioral intentions and explores the relationships between passenger behavioral intentions and the various factors that affect them. Apart from the factors recognized by past studies, such as service quality, perceived value, and satisfaction, this study addresses the importance of the involvement of public transit services in passenger behavioral intentions. By using passenger survey data from the Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit (KMRT), a newly operating public transit system in Taiwan, we apply the structural equation modeling technique to analyze the conceptualized relationship model. The findings reveal that all causal relationships are statistically significant. Managerial implications are discussed.     

Not minding the gap: Does ride-hailing serve transit deserts?

Transit has long connected people to opportunities but access to transit varies greatly across space. In some cases, unevenly distributed transit supply creates gaps in service that impede travelers' abilities to cross space and access jobs or other opportunities. With the advent of ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, however, travelers now have a new potential to gain automobility without high car purchase costs and in the absence of reliable transit service. Research remains mixed on whether ride-hailing serves as a modal complement or substitute to transit or whether ride-hailing fills transit service needs gaps. This study measures transit supply in Chicago and compares it to ride-hailing origins and destinations to examine if ride-hailing fills existing transit service gaps. Findings reveal clustering of ride-hailing pickups and drop-offs across the City of Chicago, but that the number of ride-hailing pickups and drop-offs was most strongly associated with high neighborhood median household income rather than measures of transit supply. In bivariate analyses, transit service was not associated with ride-hailing trip ends. But after controlling for neighborhood socioeconomic status, transit dependency, population density, and employment density, we found fewer ride-hailing trips in neighborhoods where bus service dominated and significantly more ride-hailing trips where rail service was prevalent. Patterns were slightly different for overnight weekend ride-hailing pick-ups, where higher transit density predicted a greater number of trips in nearby tracts. Additional research and policy is needed to ensure that ride-hailing services provide travel options to those who need them the most and fill transit gaps in low-income communities when options to increase service are limited.     

The ecological implications of visitor transportation in parks and protected areas: Examples from research in US National Parks

The demand for recreation and nature-based tourism experiences in parks and protected areas continues to grow in many locations worldwide and in response, many parks are employing transit services designed to improve visitor access. Transit services (e.g., public bus service) are a component of the overall park transportation system and are very desirable in park settings as they yield many advantages over personal auto access including reduced congestion in parking areas, a reduced carbon footprint, and an enhanced visitor experience. However, a growing body of research also suggests that the delivery of visitors via transit to destinations within a park or protected area may have unique ecological disturbance implications resulting from increased visitor use, density, and altered spatial and temporal use patterns. In this paper, we examine the relevant literature and present examples from recent research that illustrates the potential range of ecologic impacts from visitor deliveries via park transportation systems. We conclude while transit systems remain very desirable in park settings, depending on a range of situational factors, conventional, demand-driven planning and management approaches may result in unintended impacts to ecological conditions. Overall, this discussion provides a framework for improved management of the potential ecological impacts of protected area transportation systems.     

Using principles of justice to assess the modal equity of regional transportation plans

While equity has been an important consideration for transportation planning agencies in the U.S. following the passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI specifically) and the subsequent Department of Transportation directives, there is little guidance on how to assess the distribution of benefits generated by transport investment programs. As a result, the distribution of these benefits has received relatively little attention in transportation planning, compared to transport-related burdens. Drawing on philosophies of social justice, we present an equity assessment of the distribution of accessibility in order to define the rate of “access poverty” among the population. We then apply this analysis to regional transportation plan scenarios from the San Francisco Bay Area, focusing on measures of differences between public transit and automobile access. The analysis shows that virtually all neighborhoods suffer from substantial gaps between car and public transport-based accessibility, but that the two proposed transportation investment programs reduce access poverty compared to the “no project” scenario. We also investigate how access and access poverty rates vary by demographic groups and map low-income communities within access impoverished areas, which could be the subject of further focused investments.     

Spatial disparity of income-weighted accessibility in Brazilian Cities: Application of a Google Maps API

Equity in public transit ridership has attracted the attention of planning authorities as a mechanism to tackle social exclusion. The association of accessibility indexing with different income groups is fundamental to analyses of socio-spatial inequalities and identifying gaps in public transit services. However, few studies have addressed accessibility inequalities in medium-sized cities of the global South. This paper aims to identify spatial gaps in public transit service in seven medium-sized Brazilian cities by analyzing the relative accessibility of public transit and private automobiles for travel to central business districts (CBDs), which are primary employment and service centers. Demographic and socioeconomic data on the seven cities were extracted from the country's 2010 population census. To measure accessibility to CBDs, a Google Maps application programming interface was used to produce realistic estimates of travel times for public transit and private automobiles over different time periods. This method is more accurate than traditional accessibility calculation methods and provides real-time information on traffic conditions, such as speed limits, traffic jams, and waiting times. The study found significant intra-regional differences in accessibility to CBDs by public transit and private automobiles, providing a scientific basis to optimize the socio-spatial distribution of public transit services in seven cities in five different regions of Brazil.     

Optimizing transit maintenance and rehabilitation to support human development and sustainability: A case study of Costa Rica’s railroad network

Public transportation plays a critical role in improving human development and consequently the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by United Nations. Convenient and efficient transit enable inhabitants to reach labor markets, access social support facilities as well as health and education services. This study develops a decision-making support framework for transit agencies to select optimum maintenance, rehabilitation, and upgrade alternatives to accomplish good levels of service and improve human development and sustainability indexes. A case study of Costa Rica’s great metropolitan area is used to illustrate the study with various budget scenarios. The results show that the proposed system can accomplish significant improvements on both level of service and human development. It is also confirmed that the explicit consideration of human development and sustainability made a significant difference as compared to the classical approach, which only considers the level of service (LOS). The proposed model could be used by other public transit systems.     

Transit market research using structural equation modeling and attitudinal market segmentation

This paper presents a comprehensive approach for identifying potential transit markets and for developing strategies to increase public transport ridership. The approach uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to identify simultaneously travelers’ attitudes, travel behavior, and the causal relationships between a traveler's socioeconomic profile and his/her attitude toward travel. Travel attitudes are also used to identify distinct market segments and to develop plans that best serve the needs of each segment and increase transit ridership. The approach is demonstrated with a case study from the Utah Transit Authority.     

The spatial context of transport disadvantage, social exclusion and well-being

Equity has been a major concern of public transport provision and is required by legislation in many countries. Several approaches measure equity in transit supply however none produce a simple system-wide measure of equity performance. A new approach is presented using Lorenz curves to measure the relative supply of transit to the population. Gini coefficients provide a single measure of overall equity using this method. A system-wide assessment of overall transit supply to the population in Melbourne, Australia shows that 70% of the population shares only 19% of the supply (Gini coefficient = .68). When employment is also taken into account, the situation is not much different; 70% of jobs and population share 23% of service (G = .62). In order to gain some understanding of vertical equity, the transit supply was compared between different age, income and vehicle ownership groups. There is some evidence of higher supply for youth and low-income groups in inner Melbourne, and in all parts of Melbourne no-vehicle households lived in areas of higher transit supply. Overall it is unclear how “fair” these distributions are compared to equity in other cities since this is the first time this method has been undertaken. Projects using similar approaches should provide a good basis for establishing comparative equity between cities.     

Moving freight on public transit: Best practices,challenges, and opportunities

Freight on Transit (FOT) refers to an operational strategy where public transit vehicles and/or infrastructure are used to move freight. Examples include moving goods alongside passengers on buses, attaching cargo trailers to transit vehicles, and operating freight vehicles between trains on subway lines. This paper describes the methods and results of a three-round Delphi study engaging 34 transportation experts to explore challenges and opportunities of FOT and to conceptualize and evaluate potential FOT operations in Toronto. Traditional Delphi methods were used for the exploration of FOT challenges and opportunities, and a modified approach was formulated to integrate experts' opinions and develop new FOT concepts for Toronto. The results support previous claims that technical challenges of FOT may be easier to overcome than institutional barriers. Evaluation of potential FOT operating strategies in Toronto suggests that while the current public transit network does not have capacity to support additional movements, there may be realistic opportunities to include freight service in future projects as a means of offsetting operating costs and reducing the impacts of goods movements.     

The relationship between ridehailing and public transit in Chicago: A comparison before and after COVID-19

As Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) have expanded their role in U.S. cities recently, their services (i.e. ridehailing) have been subject to scrutiny for displacing public transit (PT) ridership. Previous studies have attempted to classify the relationship between transit and TNCs, though analysis has been limited by a lack of granular TNC trip records, or has been conducted at aggregated scales. This study seeks to understand the TNC-PT relationship in Chicago at a spatially and temporally granular level by analyzing detailed individual trip records. An analysis framework is developed which enables TNC trips to be classified according to their potential relationship with transit: complementary (providing access to/from transit), substitutive (replacing a transit alternative), or independent (not desirably completable by transit). This framework is applied to both regular operating conditions and to early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, to identify the TNC-PT relationship in these two contexts. We find that complementary TNC trips make up a small fraction of trips taken (approximately 2%), while potential independent trips represent 48% to 53% and potential substitution trips represent 45% to 50%. The percentage of substitution trips drops substantially following COVID-19 shutdowns (to around 14%). This may be attributed to a reduction in work-based TNC trips from Chicago's north side, indicated by changes in spatial distributions and flattening of trips occurring during peak hours. Furthermore, using spatial regression, we find that an increased tendency of TNC trips to substitute transit is related to a lower proportion of elderly people, greater proportion of peak-period TNC travel, greater transit network availability, a higher percentage of white population, and increased crime rates. Our findings identify spatial and temporal trends in the tendency to use TNC services in place of public transit, and thus have potential policy implications for transit management, such as spatially targeted service improvements and safety measures to reduce the possibility of public transit being substituted by TNC services.     

How does ridesourcing substitute for public transit? A geospatial perspective in Chengdu,China

The explosive growth of ridesourcing services has stimulated a debate on whether they represent a net substitute for or a complement to public transit. Among the empirical evidence that supports discussion of the net effect at the city level, analysis at the disaggregated level from a geospatial perspective is lacking. Besides, it remains unexplored the spatiotemporal pattern of ridesourcing's effect on public transit, and the factors that impact the effect. Using DiDi Chuxing data in Chengdu, China, this paper develops a three-level structure to recognize the potential substitution or complementary effects of ridesourcing on public transit. Furthermore, this paper investigates the effects through exploratory spatiotemporal data analysis, and examines the factors influencing the degree of substitution via linear, spatial autoregressive, and zero-inflated beta regression models. The results show that 33.1% of DiDi trips have the potential to substitute for public transit. The substitution rate is higher during the day (8:00–18:00), and the trend follows changes in public transit coverage. The substitution effect is more exhibited in the city center and the areas covered by the subway, while the complementary effect is more exhibited in suburban areas as public transit has poor coverage. Further examination of the factors impacting the relationship indicates that housing price is positively associated with the substitution rate, and distance to the nearest subway station has a negative association with it, while the effects of most built environment factors become insignificant in zero-inflated beta regression. Based on these findings, policy implications are drawn regarding the partnership between transit agencies and ridesourcing companies, the spatial-differentiated policies in the central and suburban areas, and the potential problems in providing ridesourcing service to the economically disadvantaged population.     

Users' satisfaction evolution of a metropolitan transit system in a context of economic downturn

As the worldwide financial crisis is directly connected to the transport sector, public transport systems become a central player to support economic recovery. Transit services are facing a number of challenges as a consequence of this severe crisis. However, each attribute characterizing transit services has evolved in a different manner, thereby raising some chances and opportunities at some specific areas. This study investigates the evolution of service quality on a metropolitan transit system under economic crisis conditions. We used data from three customer satisfaction surveys (2008, 2011, and 2014) conducted at the bus transit service of the metropolitan area of Granada (Spain). Principal component analysis (PCA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) approaches were applied. PCA results show that the attributes describing the service were grouped into two levels of dimensions according to their impact on users' overall satisfaction (Transport Service Factors and Comfort and Convenience Factors). Subsequently, following a competing model strategy, the existing relationships between users' satisfaction and perception of service quality dimensions were ascertained. Finally, three SEMs were calibrated, one for each year under study, and were subjected to a multigroup analysis to test for equivalence among the three models. The outcomes show that fare of the ticket has lost importance as the financial crisis has become more noticeable and that Transport Service Factors had lower influence and users' satisfaction in 2011, when downturn was more intense.     

Constructing a routable retrospective transit timetable from a real-time vehicle location feed and GTFS

We describe a method for retroactively improving the accuracy of a General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) package by using a real-time vehicle location data set provided by the transit agency. Once modified, the GTFS package contains the observed rather than the scheduled transit operations and can be used in research assessing network performance, reliability and accessibility. We offer a case study using data from the Toronto Transit Commission and find that substantial aggregate accessibility differences exist between scheduled and observed services. This ‘error’ in the scheduled GTFS data may have implications for many types of measurements commonly derived from GTFS data.     

Fair accessibility – Operationalizing the distributional effects of policy interventions

A fair distribution of public transport benefits is a commonly stated goal of agencies and operators of public transport. However, it is less complicated and costly to provide accessibility in some parts of cities and their surroundings than in other parts. Densely populated areas, and areas situated closer to the city center therefore often have higher public transport accessibility than remote or sparsely populated areas. Neglecting these realities results with an unrealistic assessment of equity in service provision and hampers their consideration when setting policy goals. In this study, we propose a framework for investigating equity in the distribution of accessibility, where the suggested goal is to provide residents with equal accessibility for equally dense and central areas. For the Stockholm County, we show that accessibility may seem to be distributed horizontally inequitable and vertically regressive. However, once controlling for how dense and close to the city center residents live, while still being horizontally inequitable the distribution of accessibility in Stockholm County is found progressive, i.e., benefiting those with lower incomes. We demonstrate the proposed method for the case of skip-stop train operations and find that it shifts our constructed accessibility measure toward a more horizontally inequitable and vertically progressive state. We conclude that our proposed method can be a potent way for public transport agencies to measure and concretize equity goals and evaluate policy changes.