Public Transit Equity Analysis at Metropolitan and Local Scales: A Focus on Nine Large Cities in the US
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
2016
Subject Area
place - north america, planning - methods, policy - equity
Keywords
Transit, equity, local Moran’s I
Abstract
Recent studies on transit service through an equity lens have captured broad trends from the literature and national-level data or analyzed disaggregate data at the local level. This study integrates these methods by employing a geostatistical analysis of new transit access and income data compilations from the Environmental Protection Agency. By using a national data set, this study demonstrates a method for income-based transit equity analysis and provides results spanning nine large auto-oriented cities in the US. Results demonstrate variability among cities’ transit services to low-income populations, with differing results when viewed at the regional and local levels. Regional-level analysis of transit service hides significant variation through spatial averaging, whereas the new data employed in this study demonstrates a block-group scale equity analysis that can be used on a national-scale data set. The methods used can be adapted for evaluation of transit and other modes’ transportation service in areas to evaluate equity at the regional level and at the neighborhood scale while controlling for spatial autocorrelation. Transit service equity planning can be enhanced by employing local Moran’s I to improve local analysis.
Rights
Permission to publish the abstract has been given by the Journal of Public Transportation, copyright remains with them.
Recommended Citation
Griffin, G.P., & Sener, I.N. (2016). Public Transit Equity Analysis at Metropolitan and Local Scales: A Focus on Nine Large Cities in the US. Journal of Public Transportation, Vol.19 (4), pp. 126-143.
