Nebojsa Stulic

This research offers spatial analysis of travel times by public transit and automobile in transit oriented neighbourhoods of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. These neighbourhoods are defined by 400 and 800 metre walking distance buffers from major rail transit stations. Study implemented array of GIS-T techniques analyzing origin-destination travel matrices producing six commuting scenarios and presented results with descriptive statistics, spatial analysis and linear regression models. The optimal transit models were the ones where trips originate and end in neighbourhoods around transit stations. Overall transit trips in Toronto and Montreal were comparable, while in Vancouver significantly longer than those by automobile. Segmenting models by trip length showed more pronounced differences. For 10-kilometre trips transit commute times were longer by 15 % in Toronto; 6 % in Montreal; and 52 % in Vancouver, than trips made by automobile. Modal travel time disparity decreased with trip lengths and increased by distance from transit stations.