Public transport availability inequalities and transport poverty risk across England

The general transit feed specification is becoming a popular data format for the publication of public transport schedules, making possible the collection of a nation-wide public transport schedule dataset, which enables monitoring of transit supply at an up-to-date and more precise level across a country than previously possible. In this paper, we use general transit feed specification data to measure local-scale public transport availability across England based on service frequency and spatial proximity to public transport stops/stations. Moreover, to demonstrate the usefulness of public transport availability measures, we examine inequalities of public transport provision and identify areas at risk of transport poverty across England. Furthermore, we estimate population (number of households) who are likely to suffer from transport poverty, accounting for public transport availability, time-based job accessibility by public transport or walking, household income and car ownership levels. Based on the criteria, we have used to identify public transport risk, we find that investment in the development of public transport services should prioritise West Midlands, East of England, South East and South West as those regions have more households who are likely to suffer from transport poverty. This paper contributes by (1) defining more comprehensive transit availability measures than existing measures at a variety of geography levels and (2) integrating fours aspects (i.e. public transport availability, job accessibility by public transport or walking, household income and car availability) to analyse transport poverty comprehensively.