Measuring the impacts of new public transit services on space-time accessibility: An analysis of transit system redesign and new bus rapid transit in Columbus, Ohio, USA
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
2018
Subject Area
place - north america, place - urban, mode - bus rapid transit, infrastructure - bus/tram lane, technology - ticketing systems, land use - impacts, land use - planning, planning - route design, planning - service improvement, operations - scheduling
Keywords
Transportation, Space-time accessibility, Public transit, Bus rapid transit, Jobs, Healthcare
Abstract
The absence of effective access to opportunities and services is a key contributor to poor socio-economic and health outcomes in underserved neighborhoods in many cities. The city of Columbus, Ohio, USA is attempting to enhance residents' accessibility by providing new public transit services. These new services include a major Transit System Redesign (TSR) of the conventional bus network and the introduction of a new bus rapid transit, named CMAX. Using a high-resolution space-time accessibility measure, we analyze whether these new public transit services will change residents' accessibility to job and healthcare in an underserved neighborhood of Columbus. Also, we assess whether enhancing the CMAX service to reduce delays (e.g., reserved lane, off-board payment system) will improve accessibility. The high-resolution space-time accessibility measure in this study uses published public transit schedules via the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS). We use multiple departure times during a day to account for the temporal fluctuations of accessibility based on the transit schedule changes. We also consider the operating hours of job opportunities and healthcare services. Results suggest that the TSR yields ambiguous benefits for accessibility to jobs and healthcare. However, the new CMAX service and its potential upgrades lead to a substantial increase in both job and healthcare accessibility. The results can be used for city officials and urban planners to evaluate the effectiveness of public transit innovations in improving accessibility.
Rights
Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Elsevier, copyright remains with them.
Recommended Citation
Lee, J., & Miller, H.J. (2018). Measuring the impacts of new public transit services on space-time accessibility: An analysis of transit system redesign and new bus rapid transit in Columbus, Ohio, USA. Applied Geography, Vol. 93, pp. 47-63.
Comments
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