Assessing accessibility-based service effectiveness (ABSEV) and social equity for urban bus transit: A sustainability perspective

Service effectiveness (SEV) of bus transit indicates the impacts and quality of transit services. In any given city, not all residents enjoy the same level of accessibility to transit supply, with socially disadvantaged groups (SDGs) having more limited access. This study aims to measure the SEV of bus transit in terms of accessibility and investigate social equity in SEV among various population groups from a sustainability perspective. A systematic methodology is proposed integrating the cumulative opportunity measure and data envelopment analysis (DEA) in order to assess the accessibility-based service effectiveness (ABSEV) of bus transit, employing Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients to explore social equity in ABSEV. Using the elderly as an example of SDGs, an empirical application of Edmonton, Canada is provided. The results indicate that 18% of the total census tracts (CTs) perform effectively in ABSEV assessment of bus transit, while the remaining ineffective CTs are divided into three spatial clusters. For both seniors and the total population, Gini coefficients of ABSEV are under 0.5. The findings can provide policy makers with evidence on how to balance the ABSEV distribution of bus transit, improve benefits of bus transit to SDGs, and enhance sustainable development of urban bus transit systems.