Transit-based job accessibility and urban spatial structure

Ruihong Huang

Journal of Transport Geography, 2020, vol. 86, issue C

Abstract: Job accessibility is a measure of people, opportunities, and transportation system that are fundamental elements of urban spatial structure. Therefore, job accessibility can be used as a tool to understand urban spatial structure. Studying transit-based job accessibility can provide more insight into inner cities. To study transit-based job accessibility, a person-based approach is needed in order to take full consideration of the elements. However, person-based approaches are substantially restricted by the availability of individual trip data. This paper takes a simulation approach to study transit-based job accessibility. First, transit-dependent worker agents are generated using a population synthesis. Then the agents are enabled with job search and commuting capabilities. Once the agents are deployed in a commuting simulation, individual commuting trips are recorded. An individual job accessibility index is developed based on simulated commuting trips. The index is normalized with an expected value of 1.0 and a measurable uncertainty level, which makes it easy to interpret and suitable for cross-regional studies. A case study is conducted in Tucson, Arizona, where about 10,000 transit-dependent worker agents produce more than 600,000 individual commuting trips during morning and afternoon peak hours. Census block, group-level job accessibility shows a random spatial pattern that coincides with a dispersed urban spatial structure of the case study area.

Keywords: Job accessibility; Public transportation; Simulation; Agents; Work trip (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692319307720

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:86:y:2020:i:c:s0966692319307720

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102748

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 ().