Measuring regional accessibility with public transport – case of Koroška region, Slovenia

Abstract

Public transport plays a major role in sustainable mobility planning. This is even more obvious on regional level, where distances are often too long for cycling, therefore public transport remains only viable sustainable travel mode. In the process of preparation of regional SUMP, evaluation of accessibility is one of crucial steps. However, accessibility measurement can be a challenging task. In Slovenia, there have been several studies measuring frequency and access to closest stop, ignoring travel speed and destinations that could be reached. However rapid increase in computing power, software development and availability of schedule data in GTFS format, opened an opportunity to evaluate accessibility more precisely. We performed an analysis for Koroška region in Slovenia. Accessibility was measured with OpenTripPlanner with OpenStreetMap data for road network and schedules in GTFS format. Travel times were measured in both directions for all inhabited cells in a grid resolution of one hectare and central settlements of intermunicipal importance. The results of the analysis are important in terms of understanding how many citizens can access settlements of intermunicipal importance with public transport. This will serve as a baseline measure in regional SUMP preparation and will enable future iterations and comparisons. It also enables us to see the gaps in public transport supply and propose improvements. Open-source tools and open data enables this method to be used in other regions as well.