Assessing the Serviceability Status of Existing Transport Network by Using Geospatial Techniques in Metropolitan City Lahore

Abstract

Reliable and an efficient Public Transport plays key role in establishing sustainable Urban Transport system and healthy environment in any city. Public Transport equity in terms of easy access for the commuters is very crucial. With the drastic increase in population and cities extent in developing countries like Pakistan, the travel demand is recklessly increasing which urge to provide efficient public transit which may cater the ever increasing transport demand. Lahore being the provincial capital of Punjab and the second most densely populated city of Pakistan, has a remarkably large transportation network. The case study presented an advanced approach to determine the population with walking access to transit stop of Lahore Public Transport network, by using Geographical Information System (GIS). This approach is quite efficient, reliable and helpful to investigate the effectiveness of transit network, user's access to transit stops and spatial gaps in the transit facilities. GIS-based network service area analysis has been utilized to find the transit stop service area of the existing public transport network in metropolitan city Lahore. To  find the transit stop service area, suitable walking time of 8 min or threshold distance of   624 m with walking speed of 78 m/min has been used as a standard. Transit stop service area has been used to find the population with walking access to a transit stop. The results reveal that only 40% of the total population was in suitable walking distance, which shows that less serviceability is due to the improper spatial distribution of existing transit stops across the transit route. The results also identify the population which is not in suitable walking distance to transit service. This study concludes that Geospatial Techniques are significant in assessment of the effectiveness and subsequently measuring the gaps in the existing transport network. Thus, on the basis of these results sustainable solution would be presented to enhance the efficacy of the integrated public transport.