Measuring transit system accessibility using a modified two-step floating catchment technique

Abstract

Previous research has drawn attention to the importance of measuring accessibility to public transit services for transport planning and decision-making purposes and to the use of GIS to produce accessibility maps. Existing measures have been criticised for their lack of sophistication and reliance on simple operations such as Euclidean buffering. This article introduces an accessibility measure based on enhanced ‘floating catchment’ techniques, which have to date not been applied to measure access to public transport opportunities. We demonstrate that, after essential modifications to reflect the characteristics of transit service provision, this approach captures many detailed aspects of accessibility including proximity, the balance between service supply and demand, cumulative opportunity and temporal availability. We illustrate its application using a case study based in South Wales, integrating publicly available digital transport timetables and information on bus stop locations with geospatial analysis tools to provide a realistic appraisal of bus transit accessibility. Such measures could clearly form the basis of future studies of social exclusion and access to public transport opportunities. We conclude by drawing attention to the potential for including more intelligent demand-side and supply-side modelling inputs and by reiterating the policy importance of developing more accurate evaluations of the current and future state of the public transport network.

Keywords:

• public transit
• accessibility
• floating catchment
• timetable information
• bus stops
• Wales

Acknowledgements

This article is based on research supported by the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD), funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (Grant Reference: RES-576-25-0021) and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW). The authors thank Martyn Dunn of Traveline Cymru for the supply of the Common Interchange Format (CIF) files for bus timetables and routes for Merthyr Tydfil Unitary Authority area. They also acknowledge the following data sources: ESRC/JISC Census Programme, Census Geography Data Unit (UKBORDERS), DIGIMAP, EDINA (University of Edinburgh); 2001 Census: Standard Area Statistics (England and Wales) Source: Office for National Statistics, ESRC/JISC Census Programme, Census Dissemination Unit, MIMAS (University of Manchester), Department for Transport (NaPTAN data). They also thank Andrew Olden of the Wales Transport Research Centre for the supply of bespoke software that facilitates the transfer of CIF information into ArcGIS™ attribute tables. However, any views or analysis conducted within the article are those of the authors alone.