Comparable Measures of Accessibility to Public Transport Using the General Transit Feed Specification

Jinjoo Bok and Youngsang Kwon
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Jinjoo Bok: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Seoul National University, Gwanak-ro 1, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea
Youngsang Kwon: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Integrated Research Institute of Construction and Environmental Engineering, Seoul National University, Gwanak-ro 1, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 3, 1-13

Abstract: Public transport plays a critical role in the sustainability of urban settings. The mass mobility and quality of urban lives can be improved by establishing public transport networks that are accessible to pedestrians within a reasonable walking distance. Accessibility to public transport is characterized by the ease with which inhabitants can reach means of transportation such as buses or metros. By measuring the degree of accessibility to public transport networks using a common data format, a comparative study can be conducted between different cities or metropolitan areas with different public transit systems. The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) by Google Developers allows this by offering a common format based on text files and sharing the data set voluntarily produced and contributed by the public transit agencies of many participating cities around the world. This paper suggests a method to assess and compare public transit accessibility in different urban areas using the GTFS feed and demographic data. To demonstrate the value of the new method, six examples of metropolitan areas and their public transit accessibility are presented and compared.

Keywords: accessibility; public transport; general transit feed specification; comparable measures; geographic information system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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