Evaluation of public transport services based on the spatial equality theory: A case study of Shenzhen city

Abstract

Using aspatial equality measurement index to evaluate public transport services may overlook the spatial agglomeration relationship of the demand and supply of public transport services. Therefore, a public transport service evaluation framework based on spatial equality theory was proposed-at the global scale, an evaluation method that integrates the Gini coefficient and Moran's I indicator was developed, and at the local scale, a spatial gap analysis was employed to explore the coupling relationship between demand and supply at each analysis unit. The case study of Shenzhen City revealed that: 1) The egalitarian-based spatial equality index shows that the administrative districts with the best and worst spatial equality status are both located in the downtown area of the city, which are Luohu and Nanshan districts. 2) The local scale evaluation visually displays the demand and supply gaps and matching status at each analysis unit. The results indicated that there exist limitations in the use of the Gini coefficient alone when conducting public transport service evaluation—the same or similar Gini coefficients can correspond to completely different service supply and demand matching status.