Investigating the impacts of public transport on job accessibility in Shenzhen, China: a multi-modal approach

Abstract

Job accessibility depends on the relationship between transport system and land uses. It involves competition for the same set of opportunities among users of various transport modes. This study introduces a multi-modal approach to investigate the impacts of public transport on job accessibility. It adapts the multi-modal two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method to measure job accessibility. It collects empirical data to operationalize the method in the context of Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen is chosen because of public transport accounts for a significant share of the city’s commuting trips and the city is a pilot city for China’s Transit Metropolis Strategy. Results show that job accessibility by public transport is much poorer and more unevenly distributed than that by driving car. The former reaches its minimum in the peripheral whereas the latter is relatively high in most areas. Results reveal significant disadvantages in accessing job opportunities for low-income or migrant workers who are dependent on public transport. The consideration of inter-modal competition would further strengthen such disadvantages. Considering that there is often correlation between job accessibility by public transport and social equity, this study illustrates transferable procedures and methods to quantify and visualize such accessibility and to identify spots where there is deficiency in the supply of such accessibility. It demonstrates the importance of incorporating the inter-modal competition into the evaluation of job accessibility in multi-modal contexts. It highlights land use and transport policy countermeasures to improve job accessibility by public transport.