Assessing Accessibility-Based Service Effectiveness (ABSEV) and Social Equity for Urban Bus Transit: a Sustainability Perspective

Performance measurement (i.e., efficiency and effectiveness) of bus transit is vital as it can profoundly affect society, economy, and the environment. Service effectiveness (SEV), incorporated as the primary component of effectiveness, involves multiple stakeholders, including transit agencies and population groups. However, not all residents, especially socially disadvantaged groups (SDGs), in a city can benefit from similar levels of accessibility under the existing transit supply. Therefore, this paper proposes a systematic methodology that integrates the cumulative opportunity measure, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, Lorenz curves, and Gini coefficients to assess the accessibility-based service effectiveness (ABSEV) of urban bus transit in consideration of social equity. Using the elderly as an example of SDGs, an empirical application of Edmonton, Canada is provided. The results indicate that 18% of the total census tracts (CTs) perform effectively in ABSEV assessment of bus transit, while the remaining ineffective CTs are divided into three spatial clusters. For both seniors and the total population, the Gini coefficients of ABSEV are under 0.5. The findings can provide policy makers with evidence on how to balance the ABSEV distribution of bus transit, improve benefits of bus transit to SDGs, and enhance sustainable development of urban bus transit systems.

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  • English

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  • Accession Number: 01686867
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Nov 26 2018 4:55PM