Despite the importance of elected officials in shaping transportation policies, there has been little direct research on their values and experiences. Understanding the values of elected officials is particularly important in the context of transportation equity, which is fundamentally concerned with the distribution of benefits across communities and geographies. This research draws on a survey and in-depth interviews with local elected officials in Canada to understand their experiences and how they view transportation equity issues. We find that elected officials have little direct experience with transportation barriers, with few experiencing issues such as unaffordability, disability, or harassment, and evidence that this influences their values related to equity. While there was widespread agreement with values such as procedural equity, there was limited support for prioritizing marginalized communities in transportation investments, and this support varied by experience and identities. These findings point to a significant disconnect between academic/professional discourses on transportation equity and the values of elected officials. This underscores the need for addressing political contexts in understanding transportation decision-making and offering deeper understandings of the motivations and values of elected officials.

On October 3rd, 2024, three stations along the east end of Montreal’s blue metro line were closed, resulting in a seven-day service disruption. While previous studies have examined the operational impacts of such disruptions, their effects on user experiences remain underexplored. To address this gap, we measure the impacts of the closure on user satisfaction and their willingness to recommend transit services. Using data from a bilingual online survey launched the day after the disruption began, we analyzed responses from blue line users (N = 655) by employing ordered probit models. The survey included a treatment group of riders directly impacted by the closure (N = 361) and a control group of those unaffected (N = 294). Additionally, we incorporate data from a secondary survey conducted one year prior to the closure, which included riders living close to blue line stations (N = 161), as a secondary control. Our findings reveal a significant decrease in both user satisfaction and willingness to recommend transit services among those impacted by the metro closure. However, these negative impacts can be mitigated when users perceive the availability of reliable and suitable transit alternatives. The findings from this research can be of interest to practitioners and policymakers as they highlight the broader implications of metro disruptions.

Transportation researchers have long used social-psychological theories to understand the impacts of travel attitudes on travel behaviour, especially in relation to the built environment and residential location choice. However, there has been limited research on whether social and transportation inequities impact the formation and change of travel attitudes and behaviour. In this paper, we used qualitative research to explore whether people’s experiences of transport poverty, defined as the combined effect of social and transportation disadvantages, contributes to the formation and change of their travel attitudes and behaviour. If transport poverty influences travel attitudes, then, according to the social-psychological theories, inequities impact travel behaviour not only through material deprivation but also by influencing travel attitudes. To examine such a relationship, we propose a framework integrating transport poverty, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (TCD) and Habit Theory (HT). We also empirically test our framework using retrospective and qualitative data collected in the Rexdale neighbourhood in Toronto. We found that consistent with our hypothesis, experiences of transport poverty influence people’s travel attitudes via perceived behavioural control and past travel behaviour, which is also influenced by transport poverty. Furthermore, transport poverty impacts the relationship between travel intention and behaviour. Moreover, daily travel behaviours of individuals living in marginalized conditions are often ad-hoc and dynamically adapted. We also explain travel behaviour adaptations in the context of transport poverty by integrating a framework for intention with social-psychological theories. Finally, we suggest research and policy implications of our framework based on our findings.

Clustering activity patterns and identifying homogeneous travel behaviour through trip chain sequences offer valuable insight for transportation planners and policymakers in addressing transport equity problems and travel demand management. This study explores how income and car-ownership levels determine mobility patterns and travellers' decisions. Unlike previous studies that investigated the travel mode and destinations separately, we designed a novel, aggregated form considering the trip purpose and associated transport mode use as a unit of our analysis. To mitigate the subjectivity of rule-based approaches for trip chain analysis, we employ a novel sequence clustering framework to extract homogeneous clusters of activity patterns. Our results reveal that income and car-ownership levels influence travellers' travel decisions and mobility patterns. Among low-income carless households, 37% of their daily trips include care activities where women more frequently than men play this traditional role in a household by either public transit or a car as a passenger. In the low-income car-owner subsample, females still use public transit for their work trips, whereas males more often use the available car to commute to work. Males of wealthy carless households integrate public transit and active transportation for their daily trips when they live in high-density and more accessible neighbourhoods. While our findings demonstrate the impact of car ownership, income, and built environment on trip-chaining behaviour, we recognise that achieving transport equity will require tailored transportation and land use policies and investments that address the specific needs and barriers faced by different household types, particularly the most vulnerable ones in terms of sociodemographic characteristics, accessibility levels, and affordability issues. Hence, we recommend that policymakers and planners take a more holistic approach to transportation planning that considers the interplay of these factors to ensure that transportation systems and services are accessible, affordable, and equitable for all.

Objective

Transportation is a critical health determinant, yet the last decade has witnessed rapid disinvestment across Canada (particularly in rural contexts) with negative health consequences. We sought to explore and describe the benefits and challenges faced in operating the first community-driven free-transportation scheme in Saskatchewan that emerged in response to widespread unavailability of public transportation due to budget cuts (austerity).

Methods

We conducted a mixed-methods community-based participatory research study involving 22 interviews with bus riders and service administrators. We also performed descriptive statistics and chi-squared analyses on bus rider data (data on 1185 trips routinely collected between July 2023 and December 2023) to explore sociodemographic characteristics and trip purposes of bus riders.

Results

All trips were completed by 616 community members using the free bus service between July 2023 and December 2023. Community members took an average of 5 trips (median = 2.0) with a maximum of 22 trips being taken by one community member (1.9% of all trips). Most trips were by women (53%), and older adults mostly used the free bus for medical purposes (22% of riders were older adults and 34% of these used the bus for medical reasons). Qualitatively, the bus service has increased access to care and promotes social participation and autonomy, especially for older adults. The service however faces some challenges, including funding disruptions and difficulty recruiting and retaining drivers.

Conclusion

Free inter-community transportation (i.e. transportation across cities and municipalities) promotes health equity and access. In contexts without access to public transportation, governments could support community-driven initiatives through increased funding.

Offering public transit services that meet the needs of older adults can contribute to their independence and well-being. Based on the Aging in Place survey conducted in March 2023 (N = 3,551), this research explores the barriers preventing older Canadians (65 and older) from using public transit in their area of residence. Specifically, we use factor and cluster analysis to identify non-transit user profiles (N = 491) based on survey participants’ perceptions of public transit and their stated willingness to use it in the next year. We find four distinct groups, including transit inclined, transit is a last resort, transit is not for now, and transit averse. Each group shows variation in the extent to which they are willing to use public transit in the future. To add nuances to our segmentation findings, we conduct a thematic analysis of an open-ended question pertaining to barriers to using public transit in each region. Access to public transit, frequency, travel time, reliability, safety, infrastructure, and convenience are defined as areas for potential improvement, though the prevalence of the concerns did vary between the non-user profiles. The findings from this research can be of interest to decision-makers and public transit agencies as accounting for the heterogeneity of non-transit users can help in directing strategies promoting public transit adoption among older adults in the future.

Decades of research indicate that accessibility plays a fundamental role in the urban systems of cities by influencing land markets and household location choices. Accessibility is also often positioned as a policy tool in enhancing the well-being of disadvantaged population groups. Considered together, recent research into transportation equity underscores the need to critically investigate the distribution of accessibility with their affordability impacts. To better understand this dynamic, this research assesses variability in the relationship between employment access and house prices within different neighbourhood types in Metro Vancouver. We first calculate network accessibility to employment opportunities. Next, to integrate equity, we use sociodemographic indicators from census data to establish a typology of four neighbourhoods: Affluent, Stable Middle-class, At-Risk Middle-class and Economically-disadvantaged. Finally, using real estate data, we employ spatial econometric models to estimate differences in the capitalization of accessibility in residential property prices across these neighbourhood types. Results suggest that the value of transit access does differ by neighbourhood type in Metro Vancouver. While more affluent neighbourhoods exhibit the highest marginal willingness to pay for accessibility, predicted prices are highest in disadvantaged neighbourhoods due to their higher absolute levels of access. The research offers new insight into how property price effects vary according to different accessibility and sociodemographic contexts, and highlights important implications for both policy and future research.

Despite several decades of research, the relationship between transit accessibility and land values remains unclear. In practice, most research has focused on simple measures of proximity that, while easy to understand, fail to capture the potential for interaction using the transit network. Through the example of the King Street Transit Priority Corridor project, this research examines how transit accessibility, and changes in access over time that result from streetcar service upgrades, are capitalized into condominium prices in Toronto, Canada. Methodological and applied contributions include calculating streetcar travel time differences using disaggregate vehicle tracking data, calculating transit accessibility using a gravity-based measure with a calibrated impedance function, accounting for variations in accessibility over the course of a day as well as changes over time, incorporating measures of access to local amenities, transforming 2D transaction information to a 3D format, and specifying 4D spatio-temporal weights. Longitudinal model results indicate that transit accessibility is a significant determinant of condominium prices. While the service upgrades did not dramatically increase accessibility levels and the implicit value of accessibility did not change over time, panel model results find that condominium property prices appreciated by about 2.7% more on average in the King Street streetcar corridor relative to the Sheppard subway control after the introduction of the priority corridor pilot. This result suggests the corridor on the whole may have became more attractive relative to Sheppard in the pilot phase.

Crises are an opportunity to learn, and transportation is no exception. The dramatic reduction in mobility levels during COVID-19, the slow recovery of transit ridership and new trends such as remote working have raised essential questions for the future of public transport. Our work focuses on transit rider segmentation, understanding the heterogeneity of users based on their behaviour before, during, and coming out of the pandemic, and what that means for the economic and social sustainability of transit systems. We asked ourselves two main questions: (i) will people continue riding transit after COVID-19? and (ii) what are riders’ reasons behind increasing, maintaining, or decreasing public transport use? Using a two-wave survey conducted in 2020 and 2021, we assessed the motives behind future public transport use in two Canadian cities (Toronto and Vancouver). We used quantitative and qualitative methods, particularly latent class cluster analysis (LCCA), text mining, and qualitative content analysis. We identified six transit riders’ profiles, ranging from those experiencing transport poverty who rely on public transport to those more resourced users who will ride less since they can choose alternatives such as remote work, private modes, or active travel. We discuss the policy and practice implications of these results, focusing on what public transport decision-makers should prioritize to benefit disadvantaged groups and recover ridership.

Marginalized communities usually experience inadequate public transport services in North America. Within these communities, buses play a vital role in everyday activity participation. Unfortunately, transport services that may advance equity by improving coverage and service for disadvantaged population groups and areas are often overlooked in transit planning since they usually underperform in ridership-based metrics. To address this problem, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) introduced an equity service policy in 2019 to enhance bus services in vulnerable neighbourhoods known as Neighbourhood Improvement Areas (NIAs). This policy involves augmenting observed ridership counts for buses serving NIAs to improve or protect services for these communities. Although this proposed measure can improve bus services in NIAs, its current form might exclude other equity-deserving riders (EDRs) living outside NIAs, increasing their accessibility barriers. Our study uses quantitative and spatial analytical methods to better understand the equity impacts of this service policy change. We propose moving from the aggregate neighbourhood-based approach using NIAs to a more comprehensive and disaggregated person-based approach. First, we create an alternate method that identifies EDRs at the bus stop level using a fusion of census and travel survey data. We then explore the differences in augmented ridership levels created by the two approaches and evaluate whether the augmented ridership levels are likely to result in meaningful service changes using existing TTC service standards. We found that 2 out of 3 transit riders in Toronto are equity-deserving, with 72% residing outside NIAs. Our approach reveals increased ridership on routes with many EDRs, which receive minimal augmentation under the NIA-based method. Conversely, if all riders in NIAs are considered EDRs, our approach shows a 19% ridership overestimation equivalent to 35,245 users. Based on these results, we recommend creating a dedicated equity tool with an individual-centric focus, identifying areas with low transit service and high EDR percentages. This tool could then be integrated as an equity perspective into annual bus service planning.