Mapping the transit network of greater Cartagena with mobile phones: Coverage, accessibility, and informality

C. Erik Vergel-Tovar, Jonathan Leape, Mónica Villegas Carrasquilla, Maria Claudia Peñas Arana, Daniel Toro González (), Leonardo Canon Rubiano, Eliana Salas Barón and Paulo Martinez

Journal of Transport Geography, 2022, vol. 105, issue C

Abstract: Emerging methods enable researchers and citizens to map transit networks through participatory processes to understand travel patterns, the location of formal and informal transit networks, and the geography of origin and destination points within urban areas. In this paper, we provide a detailed description of the method applied to map the formal and informal urban transit network of the metropolitan area of Cartagena, Colombia. A basic mapping of the entire network at the metropolitan level examines relationships between urban growth and transit supply. We converted the transit data into a static GTFS feed to calculate the coverage and accessibility of the mapped systems. To assess coverage, we compared the percentage of the urban areas served by formal, semi-formal and informal transit. To measure accessibility, we calculated the percentage of population and jobs that can be reached by each transit system from every location in the metropolitan area within four timeframes. Our analysis indicated transit deserts, mostly urban peripheries, which exclude disadvantaged groups from social and professional opportunities. We share the innovations developed and lessons we learned to facilitate transit mapping in other cities with high levels of informal transit. Our static GTFS data adds to a growing repository of open transit data sources that engage citizens, empower researchers, and inform public policy.

Keywords: Mapping; Informal transit; Smartphones; Open data; Urban transport; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692322002071

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:105:y:2022:i:c:s0966692322002071

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2022.103484

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Transport Geography is currently edited by Frank Witlox

More articles in Journal of Transport Geography from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().