Circular buffers and isodistances as methods to designate catchment areas for public transport: a comparative analysis

In most cities, we face an excessive number of cars, leading to congestion, lost time, increase in produced emissions, or decreased safety. Many policies are thus aiming at shifting the travel mode of conducted trips to more sustainable ones, typically public transport. Lately, bike-sharing offers a sustainable way of transport. It is most suitable to support the last mile of a trip and thus is relevant mostly to connect high-capacity public transport stops to the final destination. However, especially in downtown areas, it has the potential to replace trips by public transport. To understand whether these two travel modes compete or complement each other, a spatial analysis was conducted on origin-destination data of bike-sharing use, which start or end at a major public transport stop. Rides in different weather conditions during weekday afternoon peak hours and Saturday afternoon was considered to reveal correspondence among daily commuting and leisure trips. More than 6000 bike rentals were analyzed. Special focus was dedicated to the use of bike-sharing along frequent, high-capacity public transport lines. The analysis proved that bike-sharing has a mainly competitive role in downtown areas, as roughly half of the trips were conducted between public transport stops. The results of this study can be used by decision-makers to improve public transport and bike-sharing service or bike infrastructure, as well as by operators to optimize the reallocation of bike-sharing vehicles.

BackgroundThere is increasing interest in examining the influence of the built environment on physical activity. High-resolution data in a geographic information system is increasingly being used to measure salient aspects of the built environment and studies often use circular or road network buffers to measure land use around an individual's home address. However, little research has examined the extent to which the selection of circular or road network buffers influences the results of analysis.The objective of this study is to examine the influence of land use type (residential, commercial, recreational and park land and institutional land) on 'walking for leisure' and 'walking for errands' using 1 km circular and line-based road network buffers. Data on individual walking patterns is obtained from a survey of 1311 respondents in greater Vancouver and respondent's postal code centroids were used to construct the individual buffers. Logistic regression was used for statistical analysis.ResultsUsing line-based road network buffers, increasing proportion of institutional land significantly reduced the odds of 'walking for leisure 15 minutes or less per day' no significant results were found for circular buffers. A greater proportion of residential land significantly increased the odds of 'walking for errands less than 1 hour per week' for line-based road network buffer while no significant results for circular buffers. An increased proportion of commercial land significantly decreased the odds of 'walking for errands less than 1 hour per week' for both circular and line-based road network buffers.ConclusionThe selection of network or circular buffers has a considerable influence on the results of analysis. Land use characteristics generally show greater associations with walking using line-based road network buffers than circular buffers. These results show that researchers need to carefully consider the most appropriate buffer with which to calculate land use characteristics.

Shared transport modes can potentially contribute to first and last mile connections of public transport (PT) trips but this remains quite underexplored in the literature. Our study explores the user preferences for shared modes as first and last mile option to connect activity locations. We have focussed on local public transport in the Utrecht province, The Netherlands, which includes bus and tram lines. Its diversity in land use and PT network density, the overall high bicycle usage, as well as the increased proliferation of shared mobility concepts yield promising information which can be a harbinger for future PT integration worldwide. For both the urban and suburban areas of the province, we have designed and conducted a stated choice experiment. Respondents were able to choose from shared bicycles, e-bikes, e-scooters, and e-mopeds to reach their urban destination from a PT stop. For suburban destinations, we also included light-electric vehicles (LEVs), e-cars, and demand-responsive taxi services. Such a complete list of possibilities to travel by shared modes allows comparing the different options and producing trade-offs not available yet in the literature. A sample of 499 respondents (285 urban and 214 suburban PT travellers) considered their first and last mile mode choice of a recent PT trip in light of the new options. Results show that shared (electric-)bicycles and e-scooters are generally preferred over other shared mobility options. The latter specifically targets younger people (<26 years) and travellers towards suburban destinations. Still, a majority of PT users prefers not to use shared modes in the first and last mile. We found that age, current cycling behaviour and weekday/weekend travelling are the most important factors which determine these preferences. We argue that shared bicycles and e-bikes are the most capable modes in providing benefits to PT travellers in this context and, given the relatively low travel time sensitivity, can best be distributed around the most important PT stops.

Currently, analysis of the impact of public transport on real estate and its value is widely demanded in the world. The analysis is used to plan investments in public transport and the efficiency of public transport networks. In Russia, such studies have been carried out mainly in the framework of the evaluation of specific properties, which does not make it possible to macroanalyze the urban public transport environment and compare them with each other. The aim of the work is to study the influence of the proximity of public transport infrastructure on the cost of urban residential real estate, to determine the average value of such an impact for Yekaterinburg. In this study, we intend to confirm the hypothesis about different influence of the proximity of a public transport stop on the cost of housing, taking into account the different set of attributes that characterize it. The calculations were carried out using the analysis of the supply of the real estate market, carried out with the method of multiple regression, simultaneously with the geo-positioning of real estate units on the map to calculate the distance of each object to the nearest public transport stop of a certain type. Based on the results of the calculations, a global tendency towards a higher cost of the properties that are close to tram stops or metro stations in Yekaterinburg is confirmed, and the share of the value of a property generated by the proximity of a public transport stop was calculated. The authors confirmed the hypothesis about varying sensitivity of residential real estate to the proximity of public transport stops. Newer homes have lower sensitivity to proximity to public transport stops than older ones. The obtained empirical evidence of the influence of public transport infrastructure on the value of residential real estate demonstrates the most significant contribution to the value of a real estate object, the proximity to the metro station in Yekaterinburg (3.0 – 12.0%). The tram infrastructure showed a slightly lower impact on the total cost of the facility (3.2 – 8.8%). The revealed interdependencies make it possible to apply the obtained data to forecasting the growth of the taxable base for property tax during the construction of new transport lines.

Public transportation in cities is crucial for their sustainable development. The attractiveness of public transport for city residents depends largely on whether they are able to access the nearest stop on foot. The actual time of walking to the nearest stop and the distance covered can be measured using the band method or the circular buffer method. The accuracy of the two methods was compared for the city of Szczecin and one of its residential areas, Pomorzany (ca. 20,000 inhabitants, ca. 7 km2 area). The city provides public tram and bus transportation and has 90 km of streets and pedestrian paths. As shown by the results, the band method proved more accurate in measuring public transport stop accessibility. It showed 53.8% of the stops to be highly accessible, whereas 37.8%, 7.8%, and 0.5% were classified as moderately accessible, poorly accessible, and inaccessible, respectively; the latter would be hardly expected to be used by pedestrians in the Pomorzany neighborhood. The band method allowed also to indicate potential location of a new bus stop which would significantly improve accessibility of public transportation to residents of a housing estate (3000 inhabitants) in the area.

To address the issues of inefficiency and high costs in obtaining data on the residential distribution of public transport passengers at present, this paper proposes an approach of “estimating the residential distribution of public transport passengers based on characteristics such as housing prices of residential Point of Interest (POI) and the convenience of public transport and its stops”. First, from two aspects—public transport travel and the selection of public transport stops—eight influencing factors for the selection of public transport stops during travel are identified. Based on these factors, a regression model for the number of public transport passengers from residential POI to their corresponding stops is constructed, through which the number of passengers traveling from each residential POI to all accessible public transport stops is obtained. This number is then used as a weight to allocate the actual passenger flow of each public transport stop to the respective residential POI, thereby realizing the estimation of the residential distribution of public transport passengers. Furthermore, this approach enables the estimation of the proportion of trips made from residential areas to specific public transport stops and the overall proportion of public transport trips among all travel modes from residential areas. The proposed estimation method is verified and evaluated using Shenzhen as a case study.

Summary. The problems of transport systems in cities are complex and multifaceted, the main ones being congestion, environmental problems, traffic safety, comfort of using public transport, integration of new technologies, as well as issues of financing and investment in transport infrastructure. The reasons for these problems include the growing number of private cars, inefficient planning of transport infrastructure, a large number of cars on the streets, low fuel efficiency, non-compliance with traffic rules, uneven distribution of transport resources, rapid development of technology, limited budgets and high costs of infrastructure construction and maintenance. Freight transport also has a significant impact on traffic flows in urban areas. Due to their large size and lower manoeuvrability, trucks often cause slower traffic speeds and increase the risk of congestion. The lack of specialised infrastructure for trucks and poorly planned logistics routes exacerbate the situation. To address these issues, comprehensive measures are needed, including the development of public transport, the introduction of intelligent transport systems (ITS), improved traffic management, the transition to environmentally friendly vehicles, the development of cycling infrastructure, support for environmentally friendly public transport, the introduction of automated speed control systems, improved pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, optimised routes and timetables, the development of integrated transport networks, and the introduction of smart city technologies. Regulation and legislative measures also play an important role in reducing the load on urban roads. This may include the introduction of tolls to enter the city centre, taxes on owners of second cars or large vehicles, and the promotion of environmentally friendly vehicles through tax breaks or subsidies. Thus, solving the problems of transport systems in cities requires a comprehensive approach that includes technical, organisational, economic and environmental measures. The introduction of innovative technologies, development of environmentally friendly modes of transport, optimisation of logistics and improvement of traffic management are key steps towards creating efficient and sustainable transport systems in urban areas. Keywords: traffic flows, road network, transport system, specialized transport infrastructure, freight transportation.

A Comprehensive Methodology for Comparative Performance Evaluation of Public Transport Systems in Urban Areas

The article describes a study to determine the optimal parameters of a public transport stop. One of the directions of state policy in the field of transport services for the population in cities is the development and priority of public transport. Reducing the time delays of public transport can increase its attractiveness and increase the number of users. On a section of the road network with a stopping point for public transport, the length of the stopping area and the distance from the stopping point to the stop line of the regulated intersection have a significant impact on the delay time of individual and public transport. The aim of the study is to reduce the loss of time for road users by optimizing the parameters of a public transport stopping point based on the established dependencies of vehicle delay time on the length of the stopping area and the distance from the stop point to the stop line of the regulated intersection. The work uses the methods of simulation and mathematical modeling, the theory of traffic flows, methods of field observation and statistical analysis. In the theoretical part of the study, the processes of movement of traffic flows of individual and public transport are described, the hypothesis of the study on the type of mathematical models of the delay time of individual and public transport from the parameters of the stopping point (the length of the stopping area and the distance to the stop line of the regulated intersection) and the objective function are defined. To conduct experimental studies, simulation modeling of the movement of traffic flows is used. Mathematical models have been developed for the influence of the length of the stopping area and the distance of the stopping point from the stop line of the regulated intersection on the average delay time of individual and public transport at different traffic intensity of individual and public transport, which are described by a power function. On the basis of the results obtained, a method for determining the optimal parameters of the stopping point has been developed. Using the methodology on one section of the road network with a public transport stop, it is possible to reduce time delays by 10%. The scientific novelty of the study lies in establishing the dependence of the delay time of individual and public transport on the parameters of the stopping point (the length of the stopping area and the distance of the stopping point from the stop line of the regulated intersection). Further research will be aimed at studying the influence of the stopping point parameters on the choice of the optimal priority method for buses when passing regulated intersections due to the adaptive control of traffic light objects.

It is often suggested that the United States adopt policies similar to those of European countries to increase public transportation ridership and sustainability of the transport system. On the basis of two national travel surveys, socioeconomic and geographic characteristics of public transportation riders in Germany and the United States are compared, and the differences in public transportation policies in the two countries are analyzed. Dissimilar policies can help account for variability in rider-ship not explained by socioeconomic and geographic differences. In both countries, public transportation ridership increases with population density and metropolitan area size and decreases with rising income, car ownership, and household distance from a public transportation stop. However, supported by better policies, German public transportation systems can attract more riders from all groups of society. For example, Germans living in households with more cars than drivers make three times as many of their trips by public transportation than does the average American. Even Germans in rural areas use public transportation more often than do Americans in metropolitan areas. Compared with Germany, public transportation in the United States is limited to dense areas in large urban regions, is centered around buses (65% of trips), and mainly attracts poorer residents who have less access to a vehicle and live close to a public transportation stop. Compared with the United States, public transportation systems in Germany are characterized by a longer history and more efficient use of government subsidies, higher levels and better quality of public transportation supply, better regional integration of public transportation services, more multimodal coordination, and more favorable land use and restrictive automobile policies discouraging car use. Improving public transportation service in the United States could help augment the appeal of public transportation and increase ridership among all societal groups in all spatial development patterns.

The 20-min neighbourhood (20 MN) is a method of designing neighbourhoods in such a way that individuals can meet the majority of their daily needs within a 10-min walk (therefore a 20-min return trip) of their home. The Scottish Government have committed to apply the 20 MN concept nationwide, focusing on disadvantaged communities.The aims of this study were to: (1) create 20 MN catchment areas for health, transport, education, social and recreational domains; (2) describe the number of residential locations within 20 MN domain catchment areas; and (3) describe variation in access to 20 MN domains by area-level socioeconomic status and urbanicity.20 MN catchment areas (800-m) were created for 10 domains using road and path network analysis. All Scottish residential locations (n:146,190) were plotted, assigned area-level socioeconomic status and urbanicity. A dichotomised (yes/no) variable was created to identify whether it was within a 10-min walk of individual 20 MN domains.One in five residential locations had access to all 10 20 MN domains (Urban: 28%, Rural: 5%). There was variation in proportion of residential locations that has access to at least one facility by domains; 91% had access to at least one public transport stop and 84% a public open space. There was poorer access to primary care services (42%) and healthy food retailers (50%). Across all domains, access to at least one facility was greater within the most deprived areas.Access to 20 MN domains was greatest in areas where individual health status tends to be worse. A policy focusing solely on improving access to key facilities and amenities for deprived areas may be ineffective in reducing health inequalities. Future studies should assess the quality of facilities and co-location with health damaging facilities, particularly within more deprived areas. Alternative policy approaches may be required for improving access to facilities and amenities for rural communities.

The evaluation of urban public transport priority performance is a critical aspect of assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of public transportation systems in urban areas. With the increasing challenges posed by population growth, traffic congestion, and environmental concerns, it is imperative to prioritize and enhance the performance of public transport systems to provide sustainable and reliable mobility options. Which refers to the measures and strategies implemented to give priority to public transport modes such as buses, trams, and trains over private vehicles on the road? These measures aim to improve the efficiency and reliability of public transport, reduce travel times, enhance passenger comfort, and encourage modal shift from private vehicles to public transport. Improved urban mobility: Urban areas face increasing challenges of traffic congestion and limited road capacity. Evaluating public transport priority performance helps identify effective measures to improve the flow of public transport, reduce travel times, and enhance overall urban mobility. This research can lead to the development of more efficient and reliable public transport systems, encouraging people to choose sustainable transportation options. Sustainable urban development: Urban public transport plays a crucial role in reducing the environmental impact of transportation, including greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Evaluating public transport priority measures allows researchers to assess their effectiveness in promoting modal shift from private vehicles to public transport, leading to a reduction in overall vehicular emissions. This research contributes to sustainable urban development by promoting environmentally friendly transportation options. Comprehensive data gathering and analysis are part of the process used in land evaluation techniques. Various biophysical parameters, such as Punctuality for both the first and last stop, transfer convenience, the gathered data is then combined with statistical approaches, modelling techniques, and geospatial analytic tools. Punctuality for both the first and last stop, transfer convenience, Public transport site 500 m coverage rate, Morning and evening peak bus average operating speed, Public transport smart card popularity rate. Punctuality for both the first and last stop, transfer convenience, Public transport site 500 m coverage rate, Morning and evening peak bus average operating speed, Public transport smart card popularity rate. Punctuality for both the first and last stop got first rank and public transport site 500m coverage rate got last rank from this we conclude that Punctuality for both the first and last stop got first rank and public transport site 500m coverage rate got last rank

The article presents an analysis of the time availability between public transport stops and railway stations and stops on the route Szczecin Glowny-Police from the point of view of their integration. The methodology of the research was based on an analysis of public transport timetables in Szczecin, taking into account the transit time from the junction or the final public transport stop to the station or train stop.

The role of the public transport is to secure transportation requirements at the required qualitative level. Current level of the public transport capacity is first and foremost the reflection of the transport services quality level. The particular offers, benefits and disadvantages within the network of the transport system have proven complicated to follow for passengers. Passengers’ decision depends on the offered transport services’ quality. Stops are the gateway to public transport, a place where citizens hesitate if to use public transport services. It depends on the quality of the stops whether the public transport offer is attractive to passengers. According to the quality analysis of the provided services in public transport, which has been carried out in previous years, the quality of public transport stops is one of the most problematic. The article deals with public transport quality evaluation. Methods of the public transport quality evaluation are theoretically described in detail. Methodology of the public transport stops quality evaluation was evolved. The methodology was experimentally verified by conducting a transportation passenger satisfaction survey, which was organized in 2017. The experiment was based on a questionnaire, which was used for a traffic survey of the passengers. This article presents the results of implemented methodology applications, including analysis of the survey using SWOT analysis. Finally, the advantages and opportunities of the practical application of the methodology are assessed.

Food insecurity is pervasive in Allegheny County, as one in five residents experiences food insecurity. Food insecurity is linked to chronic health conditions like heart disease and hypertension and disproportionately affects women in the United States, particularly women who are head of household. There are multiple dimensions used to measure regional disparities in food accessibility. Prior research has examined the linkages between food access and food insecurity, and this study aims to explore further the relationship between equitable access to sustainable and affordable food sources. This study examines food outlets in Allegheny County to determine if there is a significant relationship between food outlet availability and food insecurity. Both the presence and accessibility of these food outlets were examined. To measure accessibility, the walking distance to the nearest public transportation stop was calculated for each public transportation stop. The minimum distance to each food outlet was compared to food insecurity rates on a census tract level. Results showed that communities without grocery stores had lower access to healthy and affordable food sources. Also, communities with a higher proportion of female-headed households experienced greater food insecurity, regardless of access to food outlets. There was no statistically significant relationship between the distance from public transportation stops to grocery stores and rates of food insecurity overall and in low-income communities. However, communities with inaccessible grocery stores, either absent in the census tract or without close public transport stops, did have even greater average rates of food insecurity if there was an above-average proportion of female-headed households. Based on these findings, it is evident there exist structural elements of the built environment that correspond with disproportionate rates of food insecurity experienced by communities with households that are predominately female headed. In addition to resource support for these marginalized groups, we suggest that sole reliance on distance as an indicator of food insecurity can be misleading. There should be a greater focus on walkability aggregated on a household or individual level within the community instead of physical distance alone at a general scale.