Daily fluctuations in transit and job availability: A comparative assessment of time-sensitive accessibility measures

Accessibility to jobs by transit is increasingly incorporated into transportation and land-use planning objectives, as it is proven to be a relevant indicator for assessing land-use and transport performance. With a rise in time-sensitive accessibility measures, choosing the appropriate measure is increasingly challenging for engineers, planners and policy-makers. This research presents a comparative analysis of three accessibility measures, two of which are time-sensitive. Relative accessibility measures are generated for five time periods based on a) constant transit service and number of jobs (constant); b) variable transit service and constant number of jobs (static) and c) variable transit service and variable number of jobs available (dynamic). The measures are first assessed by incorporating them into a transit mode share model. Interestingly, findings show that all three measures behaved similarly in the three regression models. Furthermore, all accessibility measures are found to be highly correlated. The study suggests that the most commonly used accessibility measure (constant measure at 8am) is representative of the relative accessibility (static or dynamic) over the course of the day and is thus appropriate and meaningful to be used by policy-makers, engineers and planners.

[1]  P. Olszewski,et al.  Using Equivalent Walking Distance to Assess Pedestrian Accessibility to Transit Stations in Singapore , 2005 .

[2]  Jennifer Dill,et al.  Predicting Transit Ridership at Stop Level: Role of Service and Urban Form , 2013 .

[3]  S. Mavoa,et al.  GIS based destination accessibility via public transit and walking in Auckland, New Zealand , 2012 .

[4]  Kevin Manaugh.  Who Benefits from New Transportation Infrastructure ? Using Accessibility Measures to Evaluate Social Equity in Transit Provision , 2012 .

[5]  Ahmed El-Geneidy,et al.  Non-stop equity: Assessing daily intersections between transit accessibility and social disparity across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) , 2016 .

[6]  Farrokh Alemi,et al.  Enhancing spatial detection accuracy for syndromic surveillance with street level incidence data , 2010, International journal of health geographics.

[7]  Dennis Zielstra,et al.  Comparative Study of Pedestrian Accessibility to Transit Stations Using Free and Proprietary Network Data , 2011 .

[8]  Torsten Hägerstraand.  WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE IN REGIONAL SCIENCE , 1970 .

[9]  Catherine Morency,et al.  Accessibility to health care facilities in Montreal Island: an application of relative accessibility indicators from the perspective of senior and non-senior residents , 2010, International journal of health geographics.

[10]  B. Taylor,et al.  Nature and/or nurture? Analyzing the determinants of transit ridership across US urbanized areas , 2008 .

[11]  Ahmed M El-Geneidy,et al.  Who, What, When, and Where , 2015 .

[12]  Richard L. Church,et al.  Mapping transit‐based access: integrating GIS, routes and schedules , 2010, Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Sci..

[13]  A. El-geneidy,et al.  Determinants of Mode Share over Time , 2014 .

[14]  R. Cervero.  Alternative Approaches to Modeling the Travel-Demand Impacts of Smart Growth , 2006 .

[15]  John Pucher,et al.  Urban Travel Behavior as the Outcome of Public Policy: The Example of Modal-Split in Western Europe and North America , 1988 .

[16]  Andrew Guthrie,et al.  Impact of Light Rail Implementation on Labor Market Accessibility: A Transportation Equity Perspective , 2010 .

[17]  Michael A. Niedzielski,et al.  Travel Time and Distance as Relative Accessibility in the Journey to Work , 2014 .

[18]  Reid Ewing,et al.  Transit-Oriented Development in the Sun Belt , 1996 .

[19]  Debbie A. Niemeier,et al.  Measuring Accessibility: An Exploration of Issues and Alternatives , 1997 .

[20]  Susan L Handy,et al.  Regional transportation planning in the US: An examination of changes in technical aspects of the planning process in response to changing goals , 2008 .

[21]  Richard Shearmur,et al.  Intrametropolitan Employment Structure: Polycentricity, Scatteration, Dispersal and Chaos in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, 1996-2001 , 2007 .

[22]  W. G. Hansen.  How Accessibility Shapes Land Use , 1959 .

[23]  A. Páez,et al.  Measuring accessibility: positive and normative implementations of various accessibility indicators , 2012 .

[24]  Kevin J. Krizek,et al.  Accessibility analysis and transport planning: an introduction , 2012 .

[25]  David M Levinson,et al.  Modeling the commute mode share of transit using continuous accessibility to jobs , 2015 .

[26]  David Banister,et al.  The sustainable mobility paradigm , 2008 .

[27]  Ram M. Pendyala,et al.  Development of Time-of-Day–Based Transit Accessibility Analysis Tool , 2002 .

[28]  Antonio Páez,et al.  Accessibility to transit, by transit, and mode share: application of a logistic model with spatial filters , 2012 .

[29]  David M Levinson,et al.  Access to Destinations: Development of Accessibility Measures , 2006 .

[30]  M. Kwan,et al.  Toward Socially Sustainable Urban Transportation: Progress and Potentials , 2008 .

[31]  M. Horner,et al.  Spatiotemporal accessibility to supermarkets using public transit: an interaction potential approach in Cincinnati, Ohio , 2014 .

[32]  Aaron Golub,et al.  A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications for transportation planning practice in the United States , 2012 .

[33]  Harvey J. Miller,et al.  Place-Based versus People-Based Accessibility , 2005 .

[34]  S. Farber,et al.  Temporal variability in transit-based accessibility to supermarkets , 2014 .

[35]  B. Gleeson,et al.  Investigating the Social Dimensions of Transport Disadvantage II: From Concepts to Methods through an Empirical Case Study , 2007 .

[36]  A. El-geneidy,et al.  Toward Equitable Transit: Examining Transit Accessibilityand Social Need in Toronto, Canada, 1996-2006 , 2013 .

[37]  K. Lucas.  Transport and social exclusion: Where are we now? , 2012 .

[38]  Bert van Wee,et al.  Accessibility evaluation of land-use and transport strategies: review and research directions , 2004 .

[39]  Susan L Handy,et al.  Accessibility- vs. Mobility-Enhancing Strategies for Addressing Automobile Dependence in the U.S , 2002 .

[40]  Ahmed M El-Geneidy,et al.  Integrating Social Equity into Urban Transportation Planning: A Critical Evaluation of Equity Objectives and Measures in Transportation Plans in North America , 2015 .

[41]  S. Menard.  Coefficients of Determination for Multiple Logistic Regression Analysis , 2000 .

[42]  Yuan Li,et al.  Transit accessibility measures incorporating the temporal dimension , 2015 .

[43]  David M Levinson,et al.  The Time Between: Continuously Defined Accessibility Functions for Schedule-Based Transportation Systems , 2012 .

[44]  J. Preston,et al.  Accessibility, mobility and transport-related social exclusion , 2007 .