The Impact of Rail Transit on Accessibility and Spatial Equity of Public Transit: A Case Study of Guangzhou, China

The urban rail transit network provides the possibility for people to shift from car to public transit for travel. This paper clarified the relationships among public transit, accessibility, and equity and studied the impact of rail transit on public transit accessibility that incorporates the measure of travel time and transit fare and the impacts’ spatial equity. The results show that rail transit contributes to the similar distribution between high rate of changes of time-based accessibility communities and fare-based accessibility communities, which are located nearby the rail transit lines. The degree of inequity in travel time is higher than the degree in transit fare in two scenarios. Due to the well-connected bus transit in the city center, absolute changes in travel time are slight, while relative changes are high. The rail transit has promoted the improvement of public transit equity in some areas. The difference between the time-based accessibility of Conghua District, northern and southern Baiyun District, Huadu District, Nansha District and southern Panyu District, and other communities is getting smaller, which is conducive to the improvement of spatial equity. The results provide theoretical support for the development of an integrated multimodal public transit system.