Analyzing efficiency and built environment factors for achieving convenient access to public transport: A Europe-wide DEA application

In this paper, we employed Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to assess how efficiently a sample of 22 European cities meets the SDG 11.2.1 indicator, which measures the proportion of the population with convenient access to public transport. We examined a range of cities across different sizes and regions. After using bootstrapping methods, we found that the public transport systems in southern European cities arrange their stop networks more efficiently to provide convenient access for inhabitants than those in northern cities. To reach the DEA performance benchmark, the low-efficient systems would need to reorganize their stop network and increase the population's access to public transport by an average of 58%. However, since almost all users of these systems can already walk acceptable distances to stops, these inherent inefficiencies are mainly observed due to unfavorable built environment conditions, which require a relatively extensive network of road and rail public transport stops. We estimated conditional order-m measures to unravel such exogenous influence on public transport performance. After analyzing various built environment factors, we found that cities with increased population density and a higher proportion of urbanized and built-up areas facilitate more convenient access to public transport. Cities that prioritize car-centric designs tend to have less favorable accessibility conditions. Our findings are useful for policymakers in achieving UN SDG 11 in modern cities. Expanding public transport stop networks and rail modes is important in low-density and less urbanized districts. Urban planning that promotes a more pedestrian-focused design can also improve public transport accessibility.