Assessing transportation accessibility equity via open data

TL;DR

This paper introduces an automated, open-data-based methodology for assessing transportation accessibility equity in metropolitan areas using Lorenz curves and Gini indices, enabling easy cross-city comparisons.

Contribution

It presents a novel, standardized approach that leverages open data to measure transportation equity without customized data processing.

Findings

Method successfully applied to multiple cities worldwide

Equity metrics computed solely from open, standardized data

Facilitates cross-city transportation accessibility comparisons

Abstract

We propose a methodology to assess transportation accessibility inequity in metropolitan areas. The methodology is based on the classic analysis tools of Lorenz curves and Gini indices, but the novelty resides in the fact that it can be easily applied in an automated way to several cities around the World, with no need for customized data treatment. Indeed, our equity metrics can be computed solely relying on open data, publicly available in standardized form. We showcase our method and study transp