A conceptual framework for incorporating competitiveness into network-level transit quality metrics

In today’s mobility context, people have more mode choices than in the past, and many of those new choices are auto-based. This has led to a resurgence of transit agencies rethinking their networks and how well they connect people to opportunities. This paper proposes a new theoretical framework, Competitive Access, for transportation researchers and practitioners to use in describing and measuring regional transit access. The Competitive Access framework incorporates the concept of competitiveness between auto-based modes and transit, and is flexible enough to capture the varying contexts in which accessibility can change between and within regions. Using this framework, we propose two measures that describe the trip coverage and regional access provided by a transit network. These measures better reflect the realities experienced by riders in comparison to traditional access measures. Additionally, this paper includes a guide for practitioners to implement the framework and its associated measures in a network redesign context.