Environmental Equity Analysis of the Accessibility to Public Transportation Services in Daegu City

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the environmental equity of the accessibility to public transportation services in the city of Daegu. The 2005 census data as well as bus stop and subway station datasets were integrated for building the GIS database. Public transportation service areas were then identified by a coverage method. Mann Whitney U test was used for statistically comparing the socioeconomic characteristics over different levels of access to the public transportation services. Both Dong-gu, Suseong-gu, Dalseo-gu, and Buk-gu located outside of the city had worse accessibility than others while Jung-gu, Seo-gu, and Nam-gu had better accessibility than others. There appeared no environmental inequity pattern in terms of the percentages of men, women, and teenagers over the city of Daegu whereas there existed some environmental inequity pattern in terms of the percentages of people above the age of 65 and people below poverty line. This environmental inequity pattern would be caused by some factors. Firstly, the lower income class has tended to reside in the declined or blighted areas far away from public transportation facilities since this class can not afford to pay expensive rents and land prices around the main roads with higher accessibility. Many old people belonging to the lower income class also reside in the declined or blighted areas. Secondly, there has been no law to locate bus stops and subway stations considering residents' socioeconomic characteristics and the spatial distribution of public transportation facilities has been not managed systematically by the city government. This research would shed insight on building the public transportation policy to locate bus stops and subway stations and to select the routes of buses and subways considering the spatial distribution of residents' socioeconomic characteristics.