Determining intra-urban spatial accessibility disparities in multimodal public transport networks

Abstract

Urban rail systems have been added to public transport systems, thereby changing distribution disparities in urban spatial accessibility. These disparities reflect both the ability of the public transport system to meet the needs of residents and the locational pros and cons of public service facilities. In this paper, integrated accessibility metrics are used to assess the disparities in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China. This is achieved by dividing the urban space into a multilevel grid that can be easily combined with grid-based population data to facilitate accessibility modeling, calculation, and evaluation. Additionally, an acquisition method for more accurate travel time data in the multimodal public transportation network was developed on the basis of an Internet mapping service. This provides a realistic, multimodal, door-to-door modeling approach that avoids the requirement of building complex traffic networks through Geographic Information System (GIS) software and simplifies road network modeling efforts. The results show that this modeling method can be used to reflect the accessibility disparities in the Nanjing urban space objectively and accurately.