A Composite Index of Public Transit Accessibility

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2011

Subject Area

operations - service span, planning - route design, place - north america, mode - bus

Keywords

transit accessibility, equity, United States, bus

Abstract

Measuring ease of access to transit services is important in evaluating existing services, predicting travel demands, allocating transportation investments, and making decisions on land development. A composite index to assessing accessibility of public transit is described. It involves use of readily-available methods and represents a more holistic measure of transit accessibility, integrating developer, planner, and operator perspectives. The paper reviews previous and current methods of measuring accessibility and selects three methods for application in a case study in Meriden, Connecticut. Inconsistencies are noted across the methods, and a consistent grading scale is presented to standardize scores. Finally, this paper proposes weighting factors for individual methods to formulate a composite measure based on individual accessibility component measures. The approach aims to provide a robust and uniformly applicable measure that can be interpreted easily by planners to identify shortcomings in service coverage and promote equity in transit accessibility in the community.

Rights

Permission to publish the abstract has been given by NCTR, copyright remains with them.

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS