Information Basis for Public Transportation Planning in Rural Areas

This study discusses the appropriate information required for public transportation planning in rural areas. The needs satisfaction which has been widely used as an information basis is arbitrary because a person may adapt to the poor transportation accessibility and thereby comprising the level of needs for the service. We argue that the accessibility measurement is more appropriate than the needs satisfaction measurement. We formulate the accessibility measurement method for public transportation planning in rural areas. Based on space-time prism, a measurement method is developed to calculate the possible plans of daily life activities subjected to constraints caused by the public transportation services.