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This indicator monitors the proportion of the population that has convenient access to public transport.

This indicator aims to successfully monitor the use of and access to the public transportation system and the move towards easing the reliance on the private means of transportation, improving the access to areas with a high proportion of transport disadvantaged groups such as elderly citizens, physically challenged individuals, and low income earners or areas with specific dwelling types such as high occupancy buildings or public housing and reducing the need for mobility by decreasing the number of trips and the distances travelled. access to public transport is considered convenient when an officially recognized stop is accessible within a distance of 0.5 km from a reference point such as a home, school, work place, market, etc. Additional criteria for defining public transport that is convenient include: 

1. Public transport accessible to all special-needs customers, including those who are physically, visually, and/or hearing-impaired, as well as those with temporary disabilities, the elderly, children and other people in vulnerable situations.
2. Public transport with frequent service during peak travel times.
3. Stops present a safe and comfortable station environment.

Department of Transport

Department of Transport

 Annual

 Percentage (%)

The ability of residents including persons with disabilities and businesses to access markets, employment opportunities, and service centers such as schools and hospitals is critical to urban economic development. The transport system provides access to resources and employment opportunity. Moreover, accessibility allows planners to measure the effects of changes in transport and land use systems. The accessibility of jobs, services and markets also allow policymakers, citizens and businesses to discuss the state of the transport system in the comprehensible way. The transportation system is a critical enabler of economic activities and social inclusion. The access to transport SDG indicator addresses a significant gap that was never addressed by the MDGs, i.e. directly addressing transport as a critical enabler of economic activities and social inclusion. Already, the “externalities” associated with transport in terms of Green House Gas Emissions, traffic congestion and road traffic accidents have been increasing. Emissions from transport are now responsible for 23% of global Green House Gas Emissions and are increasing faster than any other source; outdoor air pollution alone, a major source of which is transport, is responsible for 3.7 million deaths annually, road traffic accidents kill more than 1.2 million people every year and severe traffic congestion is choking cities and impacting on GDPs. Achieving SDG 11 requires a fundamental shift in the thinking on transport- with the focus on the goal of transport rather than on its means. With accessibility to services, goods and opportunities for all as the ultimate goal, priority is given to making cities more compact and walkable through better planning and the integration of land-use planning with transport planning. The means of transport are also important but the SDG’s imperative to make the city more inclusive means that cities will have to move away from car-based travel to public transport and active modes of transport such as walking and cycling with good inter-modal connectivity.

This indicator will be monitored by the proportion of the population that has convenient access to public transport. The access to public transport is considered convenient when an officially recognized stop is accessible within a distance of 0.5 km from a reference point such as a home, school, work place, market, etc. Additional criteria for defining public transport that is convenient include:

a. Public transport accessible to all special-needs customers, including those who are physically, visually, and/or hearing-impaired, as well as those with temporary disabilities, the elderly, children and other people in vulnerable situations.

b. Public transport with frequent service during peak travel times

c. Stops present a safe and comfortable station environment.

Information can be disaggregated as shown below, including potential disadvantages such as disability, but it requires strong efforts and changes in mainstream mechanisms of data collection: 

• Disaggregation by location (intra-urban). 
• Disaggregation by income group. 
• Disaggregation by sex (female-headed household). 
• Disaggregation by race (head of household). 
• Disaggregation by ethnicity (head of household). 
• Disaggregation by migratory status (head of household). 
• Disaggregation by age (household inhabitant). 
• Disaggregation by mode of public transport.

This indicator can be calculated using the following formula:

Percentage with access to Public transport = (population with convenient access to Public transport) / (City Population) * 100.

This indicator is used by the Department of Transport to monitor the use of and access to the public transportation system and the move towards easing the reliance on the private means of transportation, improving the access to areas with a high proportion of transport disadvantaged groups such as elderly citizens, physically challenged individuals, and low income earners or areas with specific dwelling types such as high occupancy buildings or public housing and reducing the need for mobility by decreasing the number of trips and the distances traveled.

As the Outcome Document 2nd Meeting of the Urban SDGs Campaign in Bangalore (12-14 February 2015) recognizes that no internationally agreed methodology exists for measuring convenience and service quality of public transport. Harmonized global/local data on urban transport systems do not exist, nor are they comparable at the world level.

All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.