Modeling Transport Accessibility with Open Data: Case Study of St. Petersburg

Transport accessibility is an important characteristic of a particular building or territory, associated with the development of urban infrastructure and population density. In big cities, it is usually measured as the time required to get to the city center using public transport with a focus on the network of subway stations. Other important types of movements include ground transportation and walking. In this study, we investigate the nature of the transport accessibility with various types of movement using open data and modeling approach. The aim of the study is to find the critical deficiencies in transport infrastructure and predict transport accessibility under changes of infrastructure and city growth. The proposed model can be the basis for optimization of public transport routes, schedules and periods of repairs. The calculation results can be updated at any time and apply to new territories as model input uses crawling of open data sources with high relevance. As the main example, we consider the data for St. Petersburg. The proposed model is quite general and can be applied to any big city.