The geography of public transport competitiveness in thirteen medium sized cities

Abstract

Securing sufficient accessibility with public transport is essential for reducing private car commuting. While most studies of transport accessibility are based on travel times, other quality factors such as the perceived disadvantage of congestion and service frequency are also of importance for transport mode choice. In this study, we use generalized journey times to calculate accessibility and public transport competitiveness, allowing us to account for other characteristics of commute trips than just travel time. We use detailed trip data to calculate generalized journey times to typical employment areas in thirteen urban regions in Norway. The results show that public transport services compete better with the car in the largest cities. Specifically, public transport is competitive for access to central employment areas but less so for less central employment areas. In the smaller cities, the private car is the most competitive mode on most commute trips. With detailed travel data, the method developed in this study can be replicated in other contexts to provide a more holistic measure of accessibility than traditional methods.