Performance measures for public transport accessibility: Learning from international practice

Abstract

There is a growing recognition by city policymakers that urban public transport systems can be developed in such a way that travelers can be offered an alternative to car-based travel. How to evolve the public transport system for this purpose is a significant challenge and raises questions of accessibility and quality largely absent from current planning evaluation. This paper explores the use of accessibility performance measures, both to assess the extent of current public transport accessibility and as a potential metric for future planning and investment. The Spatial Network Analysis for Multimodal Urban Transport Systems (SNAMUTS) tool is employed for analysis of accessibility. A sample of 21 international cities is assessed, representing a range of transport and land-use policy contexts from best to ordinary practice, including those held up as exemplars in public transport infrastructure, service planning, and delivery in Europe and North America. The findings show that the incidence of successful metropolitan public transport systems, as measured by patronage, can be linked to accessibility performance measures of network and service configurations.