Transforming Atlanta's Transit

As employment centers and worker housing shift around cities, how can transit planners best connect residents to work? Good trains and buses might not be the whole answer. The remaining legs of a trip before and after the station affect a commuter's calculation of the cost of a ride.

In "Measuring Transit Equity of an On-Demand Multimodal Transit System" (Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 91, No. 1) Uijeong Hwang, Seung Jae Lieu, Hongzhao Guan, Kevin Dalmeijer, Pascal van Hentenryck, and Subhrajit Guhathakurta pilot tested an On-Demand Multimodal Transit System (ODMTS) in four neighborhoods in Atlanta.

Racialized Transit History

Atlanta's history of racial segregation is imprinted on its social geography. There is a stark distinction in the racial composition of the northern suburbs compared with the southern metro counties.

The current public transit system remains concentrated in the majority-Black city, instead of being dispersed through the predominantly white suburban counties in the north. While the transit system has remained largely unchanged, new employment centers in the northern suburbs exacerbate issues of job access for poorer residents in the city.

First-Mile/Last Mile

The authors identified the first mile/last mile problem as a principal cause of reduced accessibility for lower-income, transit-dependent neighborhoods. The first mile/last mile is the distance and time between an individual's home or destination and the first access point of public transit.

This could be the e-scooter ride from home to the train station, as well as the walk from the arriving station to work. If this trek to the station is too long, even the fastest train may not be accessible. The last mile particularly presents barriers for city residents hoping to commute to suburban workplaces.

To address this obstacle, the authors piloted an on-demand multimodal transit system. They propose its potential to alleviate historical inequities and expand economic opportunities for disadvantaged communities.

Figure 1: Public transit network in the study area.

The goal of the ODMTS was to connect the existing public transit network in Atlanta with on-demand shuttles to provide first– and last-mile services.

This study targeted lower-income, transit-dependent neighborhoods by connecting users' homes and destinations to public transit stops via on-demand shuttles.

By solving the first and last mile issue, they sought to create a cohesive public transit system designed to optimize riders' full journeys. There are also environmental implications of the on-demand multimodal transit system for its potential to reduce auto dependency.

Figure 5: Relative accessibility of the current transit system (left) and ODMTS (right) at the ratio threshold of 2 (twice driving time).

Learning and Investing

The authors found the ODMTS to meaningfully contribute to transit equality by reducing the disparity in transit service between neighborhoods close to the transit network and those far from the network. However, the system did not meaningfully impact transit equity.

The authors claim the lack of impact was due to land use issues. They call for cities to adjust regulations and incentives for transforming land use to help advance an equitable distribution of jobs and other destinations. They encourage investing in ODMTS to meet goals of advancing sustainability, reducing climate-altering greenhouse gases, and moving toward transit equity.

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