Decision Support System for Measuring Pedestrian Accessibility to Public Transit Nodes

Abstract

Worldwide, most previous studies based on the transit-oriented development (TOD) concept focused heavily on the three Ds (3Ds) application in TOD (e.g., urban density, design, and land use diversity). Along with the 3Ds, three other TOD dimensions of transportation characteristics, such as destination accessibility, local distance to metro station, and travel demand management (TDM), and sociodemographics, which is the seventh dimension, significantly contribute to decision-making in TOD policies. It is hard to infer the actual travel behavior of transit riders when assessing transit nodes on foot from the static land use distribution that is assigned in the master plan. The novelty of this study is that an aggregated TOD index equation is formulated that uses an expert questionnaire, which involves 31 respondents and a spatial multiple criteria analysis (SMCA) tool, to assign weights and ranks to three identified TOD criteria that strongly influence pedestrian accessibility to metro stations. This study has examined all seven dimensions of TOD along with the impact of seasonal variation on short-distance walking to transit stations in the grid-layout planned Indian city of Noida (Uttar Pradesh, India), which used a Global Positioning System (GPS)-based metro station survey questionnaire. The path walkability evaluation of typical pedestrian routes that use GPS devices identifies typical pedestrian barriers in the urban planning of Noida that dissuade pedestrian accessibility for all. Three suitable TOD criteria, such as distance to the metro station, pedestrian destination accessibility, and availability of two-wheeler parking areas near a metro station, have a statistically significant association with walking to transit nodes. The TOD policy for brownfield urban areas should look at improving pedestrian accessibility for all and revise pedestrian guidelines for Indian cities to address inequitable walking environments. The integration of urban development with the public transit system offers a promising approach to encourage higher transit ridership and discourage citizens from using their private automobiles, especially for daily short and medium trip lengths. The future growth in the transit system when reshaping urban development around metro stations cannot be achieved until pedestrian-accessible streets and sidewalks are enhanced to easily assess transit stations on foot. A portable GPS tracking device and a smart Android phone could be used along with other state-of-the-art technologies to analyze the travel behavior of transit users and the physical evaluation of the actual walkable routes taken by them to reach their nearest metro station. The free smart mobile apps allow researchers and nonresearchers, especially in developing nations, to conduct field surveys that use smart Android phones with GPS location facilities and cameras to capture live images.