Optimizing Transit Equity and Accessibility of the City of Charlotte, North Carolina, by Integrating Transit Gap Index, a General Transit Feed Specification Data-Relevant Performance Metric

Abstract

Public transit is a critical component of transportation planning. One important task is to optimize the public transit service for people by improving current service or having new investments. Under such circumstances, the main objective of this study is to develop optimization models for improving transit equity and accessibility for people by integrating the transit gap index (TGI), a performance metric using the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data. TGI was developed by considering demographic features, as well as spatial and temporal transit service characteristics. Two models were built with the intention to optimize the transit equity by mitigating the transit deficiency (i.e., TGI). Two different conditions were considered while developing both models: (1) maximizing the level of transit services under the constraint of a limited budget that will be invested in the new constructions of public transit stops; and (2) minimizing the total cost for constructing new public transit stops with constraints on certain improvements of transit services for a certain amount of block groups. Finally, a case study in the City of Charlotte, North Carolina, was conducted, and comprehensive numerical results and analyses based on the proposed models are provided.