Developing High-resolution and Accurate Accessibility Measures for Public Transit Justice in New York City

Keywords: public transit, accessibility, real-time transit data, transit justice
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 4

Abstract

Public transit is integral to the urban system and its importance cannot be overstated in megacities like New York City. The NYC public transit system moves millions of people every day and allows them to access employment, health, food, recreation, and other services. Measuring public transit accessibility has a long history in urban studies, yet the latest development of real-time transit data containing service disruptions and delays poses challenges and also offers new opportunities for accessibility research. Most existing accessibility measurement methods are often solely based on the spatial distribution of bus stops, subway stations, and bus and train routes with little consideration of the temporal components such as the frequency and schedules of the transit services throughout the day and the week. Even those that do consider scheduling only utilize static schedules as published by transit authorities, which would result in patterns that often do not match the experience and perception of the public transit riders because they have ignored the very common schedule changes and service disruptions. The objective of the work is to develop high-resolution and accurate spatiotemporal accessibility measures by incorporating real-time transit information over the course of multiple whole weeks. With accessibility measured at individual subway stations every few minutes, the paper specifically examines its implications for transit justice and the transit system dynamics before and during the recent pandemic.