Type of Document	Master's Thesis
Author	Challuri, Sainath
Author's Email Address	schall1@lsu.edu
URN	etd-06212006-113212
Title	An Analysis of Public Transit Accessibility Using the Distance Constrained P-Median Problem Approach: Bus Stop Consolidation for the Capital Area Transit System of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana
Degree	Master of Science (M.S.)
Department	Geography & Anthropology
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Nina S.-N. Lam Committee Chair Andrew Curtis Committee Member Michael Leitner Committee Member
Keywords	accessibility p-median transit bus stop spacing
Date of Defense	2006-05-02
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract Over the past four decades public transit usage has declined in the United States. Transit Planners have suggested that public transit usage should be encouraged because public transit can account for greater travel demand than cars and would reduce pollution, traffic congestion and energy consumption. Easy access to public transit stops is important because research has found that usage of public transit and access are inversely proportional. U.S. transit systems have a relatively high density of stops resulting in high accessibility levels at the cost of increased travel times. In this study access distance to transit stops and bus stop spacing were used as the basis to examine the inefficiencies, indicated by the redundancy in the number of bus stops, for the Capital Area Transit System (CATS) of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. The Distance Constrained P-Median Problem model was used. Based on the bus stop spacing standard of 300-600 m it was found that the interpreted increase in average bus stop spacing for the suggested minimum number of bus stops along all the routes was 617.97 m. Also, it was found that on average for all the routes, about 74.68 % bus stops can be reduced for the 400 m access standard. The suggested reduction in the number of bus stops will not sacrifice the current level of geographic coverage and would not increase the average access distance to bus stops beyond the accepted standard of 400 m.
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