Public Transport Accessibility Measures and Urban Planning Implications in Barcelona's Metropolitan Area

Public Transport (PT) accessibility measures are fundamental indicators for urban and transport planners to encourage Transit Oriented Development (TOD) in urban areas. The idea is to reduce car dependency, and all the negative impacts associated to it, by promoting more compact cities, non-motorized transport modes, and a metropolis articulated by PT networks. In this paper, a PT accessibility measure is proposed and applied to Barcelona’s metropolitan area. This tool should have a relevant role in urban planning decisions at the Area Metropolitana de Barcelona (AMB), the Barcelona’s Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). There are many different methodologies to calculate PT accessibility, however, some of them are difficult to implement due to data availability. The Public Transport Accessibility Level (PTAL) methodology was developed and implemented by Transport for London (TfL) and it is still a widely used method due to its simplicity to calculate and implement. The present study proposes a modification of the PTAL methodology to make more relevant some key PT performance parameters: frequency, reliability, and connectivity. Additionally, the authors combine the PT accessibility with urban form indicators: density of population and land use mixture. The authors want to identify those areas with high population or high concentration of activities (non-residential), and with low PT accessibility levels. Results depict 3 main areas where PT accessibility could be addressed.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADA20 Standing Committee on Metropolitan Policy, Planning, and Processes.
• Authors:
  • Recio, Judith
  • Pretel, Lluis
  • Ortigosa, Javier
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References;
• Pagination: 15p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accessibility; City planning; Metropolitan areas; Metropolitan planning organizations; Public transit; Transit oriented development
• Geographic Terms: Barcelona (Spain)
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01661306
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-04955
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 26 2018 1:47PM