2013 Session: 350

• Toward Equitable Transit: Examining Transit Accessibility and Social Need in Toronto, Canada, 1996-2006
  Abstract: The location of transit infrastructure distributes publicly-funded benefits to residents throughout a region. However, these benefits are not always distributed equally among different population groups. This research seeks to determine whether the benefits of Toronto’s public transit system are equitably distributed, and how these benefits change from 1996 to 2006 after the implementation of several transit projects in the region. We develop a methodology using a social indicator based on census tract level socio-economic characteristics to measure the relationship between social disadvantage and accessibility to jobs and transit travel time in the Toronto region over time. Transit equity is examined at three levels: spatially, temporally, and by job type. We find the range in accessibility and transit travel time narrows over the 10 year period. In addition, the most socially disadvantaged census tracts have statistically significantly better accessibility and lower transit travel times relative to the rest of the region in both 1996 and in 2006. Our findings show that Toronto has a generally equitable transit system that benefits those in social need, who are likely to gain the most from transit. The methodology proposed presents a useful way to bring issues of social equity directly into the land use and transportation planning process.
  Authors: Foth, Nicole; Manaugh, Kevin; El-Geneidy, Ahmed M.
  Authors: Foth, Nicole; Manaugh, Kevin; El-Geneidy, Ahmed M.
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Policy; Public Transportation; Society
  Session: 350
  Paper Number: 13-1731
• Transportation Equity in Island Regions: Roadmap for Application of Universal Service
  Abstract: When compared to mainlanders, islanders face many restrictions to their movements since they can't use road or rail transport to link with other islands or with the mainland. That's why the islands are always depending on public transport, mainly ferry services for their communication with the outer world. Ferry operators will focus on the high-profit areas that provide the necessary surplus of demand to cover their costs requirements and yield a reasonable profit in commercial standards. Consequently, the regions in which services can be provided at a loss or at a net cost which falls outside normal commercial standards will rarely be serviced at a sufficient level. To address this problem of transportation inequity and social exclusion we have identified the need for “Universal Service” (UnS) in island regions which are affected by the hurdles of remoteness and insularity. Universal service refers to an obligation imposed on one or more ferry operators to provide a minimum set of services to all users, regardless of their geographical location, at an affordable price. This paper provides a roadmap for the application of universal service in insular regions. It does so by considering the following elements: basic access, service availability, designation of undertakings, affordability of tariffs, quality of service and financing of universal service obligations.
  Authors: Panou, Konstantinos
  Authors: Panou, Konstantinos
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Policy; Public Transportation; Society
  Session: 350
  Paper Number: 13-2737
• Innovations in the Equity Analysis of Regional Transportation Plans
  Abstract: The laws and guidance governing the equity analysis of regional transportation plans generally do not prescribe specific analytical practices. In the absence of explicit requirements, an approach has evolved that relies upon methods developed for traditional environmental justice analysis based on geographic aggregation of target populations and a conception of equity that generally ignores existing disparities. This article uses activity-based travel demand modeling data provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the nine county San Francisco Bay Area, to perform a sensitivity analysis on geographic thresholds and compare estimates of aggregate and disaggregate travel behavior. The sensitivity analysis provides important information about existing commute time by local bus in communities with increasing concentrations of people of color. Additionally, aggregating over all modes and several different protected populations obscures important differences that are only visible when disaggregated. Both threshold approaches and disaggregate analyses can provide important information about inequities, but because the particular threshold definition employed can entirely predict the outcome of an equity analysis, care must be taken to ensure that the outcomes from the analysis are meaningful. This result suggests that members of the public and transportation advocates participating in the development of regional equity analyses must shift their focus from indicators and metrics to consider the importance of the methods used to calculate those indicators. The paper concludes by proposing one example of a revised equity analysis that is more informative than previous iterations and is responsive to feedback from regional equity stakeholders.
  Authors: Karner, Alex; Niemeier, Debbie
  Authors: Karner, Alex; Niemeier, Debbie
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Policy; Public Transportation; Society
  Session: 350
  Paper Number: 13-4203
• Incorporating Equity into Interurban Road Network Design
  Abstract: Methods for the road network design problem are, typically, based on the optimization of the network efficiency measures (e.g. network-wide travel time) under a predefined budget. In these approaches, equity issues are not taken into account and, consequently, most of the road improvements are planned next to the large cities. Thus, disparities between large and small cities increase, which does not conform to the sustainable development objectives. In this paper, to overcome concerns associated with the traditional methods, equity is incorporated into the interurban road network design problem. To this end, accessibility concepts are employed in this study. However, unlike the previous studies, instead of maximizing the total accessibility, a new definition is proposed for inaccessibility, and total inaccessibility is minimized throughout the network. Using the new definition is not only more compatible with the equity issues, but also helps to eliminate the nonlinearity of the problem. Average travel time to the neighboring opportunities is utilized to propose the definition for inaccessibility, which more effectively captures the reality. With the aim of this definition, equity is incorporated into the road network design problem implicitly. This is another improvement over the previous methods, where a new term in the objective function or a new constraint is added to include the equity. The proposed model is formulated as a mixed integer programming (MIP) problem, where the objective is to minimize the aggregate inaccessibility over all the population centers in the network. To illustrate the application of the model, a medium-sized network is used as the numerical example and the respective exact solution is found using a commercial solver.
  Authors: Mollanejad, Mostafa; Zhang, Lei
  Authors: Mollanejad, Mostafa; Zhang, Lei
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Policy; Public Transportation; Society
  Session: 350
  Paper Number: 13-5318