IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nex/wpaper/transitcircuity.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Circuity in Urban Transit Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Jie Huang
  • David Levinson

    (Nexus (Networks, Economics, and Urban Systems) Research Group, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota)

Abstract

This paper investigates the circuity of transit networks and examines auto mode share as a function of circuity and accessibility to better understand the performance of urban transit systems. We first survey transit circuity in the Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota, region in detail, comparing auto and transit trips. This paper finds that circuity can help to explain mode choices of commuters. We then investigate thirty-five additional metropolitan areas in the United States. The results from these areas show that transit circuity exponentially declines as travel time increases. Moreover, we find that the circuity of transit networks is higher than that of road networks, illustrating how transit systems choose to expand their spatial coverage at the expense of directness and efficiency in public transportation networks. This paper performs a regression analysis that suggests the circuity of transportation networks can estimate transit accessibility, which helps to explain mode share.

Suggested Citation

  • Jie Huang & David Levinson, 2015. "Circuity in Urban Transit Networks," Working Papers 201501, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:nex:wpaper:transitcircuity
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11299/180057
    File Function: Second version, 2015
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Derrible, Sybil & Kennedy, Christopher, 2010. "The complexity and robustness of metro networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(17), pages 3678-3691.
    2. Mohring, Herbert, 1972. "Optimization and Scale Economies in Urban Bus Transportation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 591-604, September.
    3. David J Giacomin & David M Levinson, 2015. "Road network circuity in metropolitan areas," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 42(6), pages 1040-1053, November.
    4. Mokhtarian, Patricia L. & Cao, Xinyu, 2008. "Examining the impacts of residential self-selection on travel behavior: A focus on methodologies," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 204-228, March.
    5. Cao, Xinyu (Jason) & Mokhtarian, Patricia L. & Handy, Susan L., 2009. "The relationship between the built environment and nonwork travel: A case study of Northern California," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 548-559, June.
    6. David Levinson, 2012. "Network Structure and City Size," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(1), pages 1-11, January.
    7. Lee, Young‐Jae, 2008. "Comparative Measures for Transit Network Performance Analysis," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Transportation Research Forum, vol. 47(3).
    8. David Levinson, 1998. "Accessibility and the Journey to Work," Working Papers 199802, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    9. Owen, Andrew & Levinson, David M., 2015. "Modeling the commute mode share of transit using continuous accessibility to jobs," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 110-122.
    10. Levinson, David & El-Geneidy, Ahmed, 2009. "The minimum circuity frontier and the journey to work," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 732-738, November.
    11. Cao, Xinyu & Mokhtarian, Patricia & Handy, Susan, 2008. "Examining The Impacts of Residential Self-Selection on Travel Behavior: Methodologies and Empirical Findings," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt08x1k476, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    12. Mishra, Sabyasachee & Welch, Timothy F. & Jha, Manoj K., 2012. "Performance indicators for public transit connectivity in multi-modal transportation networks," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(7), pages 1066-1085.
    13. Bar-Yosef, Asaf & Martens, Karel & Benenson, Itzhak, 2013. "A model of the vicious cycle of a bus line," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 37-50.
    14. Sybil Derrible, 2012. "Network Centrality of Metro Systems," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-10, July.
    15. Taylor, Brian D., 1991. "Unjust Equity: An Examination of California's Transportation Development Act," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt7h13774d, University of California Transportation Center.
    16. Sergio Porta & Emanuele Strano & Valentino Iacoviello & Roberto Messora & Vito Latora & Alessio Cardillo & Fahui Wang & Salvatore Scellato, 2009. "Street Centrality and Densities of Retail and Services in Bologna, Italy," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 36(3), pages 450-465, June.
    17. Ballou, Ronald H. & Rahardja, Handoko & Sakai, Noriaki, 2002. "Selected country circuity factors for road travel distance estimation," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 843-848, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patricia C Melo & Daniel J Graham & David Levinson & Sarah Aarabi, 2017. "Agglomeration, accessibility and productivity: Evidence for large metropolitan areas in the US," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(1), pages 179-195, January.
    2. Cao, Zhejing & Zhang, Xiaohu & Chua, Kelman & Yu, Honghai & Zhao, Jinhua, 2021. "E-scooter sharing to serve short-distance transit trips: A Singapore case," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 177-196.
    3. Rahimi-Golkhandan, Armin & Garvin, Michael J. & Brown, Bryan L., 2019. "Characterizing and measuring transportation infrastructure diversity through linkages with ecological stability theory," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 114-130.
    4. Tzay-An Shiau & Ching-Shuan Lee, 2017. "Measuring Network-Based Public Transit Performance Using Fuzzy Measures and Fuzzy Integrals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-16, April.
    5. Dixit, Malvika & Chowdhury, Subeh & Cats, Oded & Brands, Ties & van Oort, Niels & Hoogendoorn, Serge, 2021. "Examining circuity of urban transit networks from an equity perspective," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    6. Lu, Qing-Long & Sun, Wenzhe & Dai, Jiannan & Schmöcker, Jan-Dirk & Antoniou, Constantinos, 2024. "Traffic resilience quantification based on macroscopic fundamental diagrams and analysis using topological attributes," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    7. Yang Cao & Linxing Wang & Hao Wu & Shuqi Yan & Shuwen Shen, 2023. "Identification and Mechanism of Residents’ Regional Non-Commuting Flow Patterns Based on the Gradient Boosting Decision Tree Model: A Case Study of the Shanghai Metropolitan Area," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-21, August.
    8. Juan C Duque & Nancy Lozano-Gracia & Jorge E Patino & Paula Restrepo, 2022. "Urban form and productivity: What shapes are Latin-American cities?," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 49(1), pages 131-150, January.
    9. Ali Enes Dingil & Federico Rupi & Domokos Esztergár-Kiss, 2021. "An Integrative Review of Socio-Technical Factors Influencing Travel Decision-Making and Urban Transport Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-20, September.
    10. Yat Yen & Pengjun Zhao & Muhammad T Sohail, 2021. "The morphology and circuity of walkable, bikeable, and drivable street networks in Phnom Penh, Cambodia," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 48(1), pages 169-185, January.
    11. Zaouche, Mounia & Bode, Nikolai W.F., 2023. "Bayesian spatio-temporal models for mapping urban pedestrian traffic," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    12. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "The Relative Circuity of Walkable and Drivable Urban Street Networks," SocArXiv 4rzqa, Center for Open Science.
    13. Padraig Corcoran & Rhyd Lewis, 2023. "A navigability entropy model for street networks," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 50(8), pages 2171-2186, October.
    14. Yang, Wenyue & Chen, Huiling & Wang, Wulin, 2020. "The path and time efficiency of residents' trips of different purposes with different travel modes: An empirical study in Guangzhou, China," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    15. Zuo, Yufan & Fu, Xiao & Liu, Zhiyuan & Huang, Di, 2021. "Short-term forecasts on individual accessibility in bus system based on neural network model," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    16. Merchán, Daniel & Winkenbach, Matthias & Snoeck, André, 2020. "Quantifying the impact of urban road networks on the efficiency of local trips," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 38-62.
    17. Moyano, Amparo & Moya-Gómez, Borja & Gutiérrez, Javier, 2018. "Access and egress times to high-speed rail stations: a spatiotemporal accessibility analysis," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 84-93.
    18. Yang, Lan & Eom, Sunyong & Suzuki, Tsutomu, 2021. "Measuring railway network performance considering accessibility levels in cities worldwide," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    19. Boeing, Geoff, 2019. "The Morphology and Circuity of Walkable and Drivable Street Networks," SocArXiv edj2s, Center for Open Science.
    20. Mohammad Azmoodeh & Farshidreza Haghighi & Hamid Motieyan, 2023. "Capability Index: Applying a Fuzzy-Based Decision-Making Method to Evaluate Social Inclusion in Urban Areas Using the Capability Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 77-105, January.
    21. Hu, Xinlei & Huang, Jie & Shi, Feng, 2019. "Circuity in China's high-speed-rail network," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    22. Zhang, Yuerong & Marshall, Stephen & Manley, Ed, 2021. "Understanding the roles of rail stations: Insights from network approaches in the London metropolitan area," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hu, Xinlei & Huang, Jie & Shi, Feng, 2019. "Circuity in China's high-speed-rail network," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    2. Parthasarathi, Pavithra & Levinson, David, 2018. "Network structure and the journey to work: An intra-metropolitan analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 292-304.
    3. Singh, Abhilash C. & Faghih Imani, Ahmadreza & Sivakumar, Aruna & Luna Xi, Yang & Miller, Eric J., 2024. "A joint analysis of accessibility and household trip frequencies by travel mode," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    4. Hao Wu & David Levinson & Andrew Owen, 2021. "Commute mode share and access to jobs across US metropolitan areas," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 48(4), pages 671-684, May.
    5. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "The Relative Circuity of Walkable and Drivable Urban Street Networks," SocArXiv 4rzqa, Center for Open Science.
    6. Boeing, Geoff, 2019. "The Morphology and Circuity of Walkable and Drivable Street Networks," SocArXiv edj2s, Center for Open Science.
    7. Li, Peilin & Zhao, Pengjun & Schwanen, Tim, 2020. "Effect of land use on shopping trips in station areas: Examining sensitivity to scale," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 969-985.
    8. Mengying Cui & David Levinson, 2018. "Accessibility analysis of risk severity," Transportation, Springer, vol. 45(4), pages 1029-1050, July.
    9. Bhat, Chandra R. & Astroza, Sebastian & Sidharthan, Raghuprasad & Alam, Mohammad Jobair Bin & Khushefati, Waleed H., 2014. "A joint count-continuous model of travel behavior with selection based on a multinomial probit residential density choice model," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 31-51.
    10. Lin, Tao & Wang, Donggen & Guan, Xiaodong, 2017. "The built environment, travel attitude, and travel behavior: Residential self-selection or residential determination?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 111-122.
    11. Jahanshahi, Kaveh & Jin, Ying & Williams, Ian, 2015. "Direct and indirect influences on employed adults’ travel in the UK: New insights from the National Travel Survey data 2002–2010," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 288-306.
    12. Xiaoshu Cao & Feiwen Liang & Huiling Chen & Yongwei Liu, 2017. "Circuity Characteristics of Urban Travel Based on GPS Data: A Case Study of Guangzhou," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-21, November.
    13. Pavithra Parthasarathi & David Levinson & Hartwig Hochmair, 2013. "Network Structure and Travel Time Perception," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-13, October.
    14. Wang, Donggen & Lin, Tao, 2013. "Built environments, social environments, and activity-travel behavior: a case study of Hong Kong," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 286-295.
    15. Ettema, Dick & Nieuwenhuis, Roy, 2017. "Residential self-selection and travel behaviour: What are the effects of attitudes, reasons for location choice and the built environment?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 146-155.
    16. Heres-Del-Valle, David & Niemeier, Deb, 2011. "CO2 emissions: Are land-use changes enough for California to reduce VMT? Specification of a two-part model with instrumental variables," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 150-161, January.
    17. Bergmann, Felix M. & Wagner, Stephan M. & Winkenbach, Matthias, 2020. "Integrating first-mile pickup and last-mile delivery on shared vehicle routes for efficient urban e-commerce distribution," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 26-62.
    18. van Wee, Bert & De Vos, Jonas & Maat, Kees, 2019. "Impacts of the built environment and travel behaviour on attitudes: Theories underpinning the reverse causality hypothesis," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    19. Aston, Laura & Currie, Graham & Kamruzzaman, Md. & Delbosc, Alexa & Teller, David, 2020. "Study design impacts on built environment and transit use research," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    20. David Levinson & Hao Wu, 2020. "Towards a general theory of access," Working Papers 2022-01, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Circuity; Accessibility; Transit networks; Network efficiency; Mode share; Public transportation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise
    • R42 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government and Private Investment Analysis; Road Maintenance; Transportation Planning

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nex:wpaper:transitcircuity. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: David Levinson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nexmnus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.