11 Public Transport Travel Time Maps: Europe vs The United States

London Public Transport Travel Time Map created using TravelTime Maps Radius tool

Have you ever wondered how much of your city is accessible by public transport within 60 minutes?

Well TravelTime Maps have created a really cool radius tool that allows you to explore how far you can get in a given amount of time.

In the examples below we looked we looked at how of much of each city within a 10 mile (16km) radius from the centre was reachable by public transport within 1 hour. We looked at 5 European capitals vs the 4 largest US cities plus Washington DC and Toronto, Canada.

Europe

Overall, European cities do quite well, although there is a big north vs south divide with London, Paris Berlin all over 70% reachable, whereas Madrid and Rome are less than 50% reachable.

1. London

• 11% of the 10 mile radius is not reachable by public transport within 60 minutes (89% reachable)
• 28% of the 60 minute public transport time falls beyond the radius

2. Berlin

• 24% of the 10 mile radius is not reachable by public transport within 60 minutes (76% reachable)
• 22% of the 60 minute public transport time falls beyond the radius

3. Paris

• 28% of the 10 mile radius is not reachable by public transport within 60 minutes (72% reachable)
• 17% of the 60 minute public transport time falls beyond the radius

4. Madrid

• 57% of the 10 mile radius is not reachable by public transport within 60 minutes (43% reachable)
• 19% of the 60 minute public transport time falls beyond the radius

5. Rome

• 60% of the 10 mile radius is not reachable by public transport within 60 minutes (40% reachable)
• 0% of the 60 minute public transport time falls beyond the radius

United States + Canada

As one might expect the US and Canada do less well than the European cities. However, part of the issue is how the radius is calculated. It only looks at the percentage of the radius you can get to using public transport, and does not take into account whether where you want to go is land or water.

This means, Chicago, Toronto and to a lesser extend New York look far worse than they would if you excluded water.

6. Houston

• 50% of the 10 mile radius is not reachable by public transport within 60 minutes (50% reachable)
• 10% of the 60 minute public transport time falls beyond the radius

7. New York City

• 53% of the 10 mile radius is not reachable by public transport within 60 minutes (47% reachable)
• 15% of the 60 minute public transport time falls beyond the radius

8. Chicago

• 53% of the 10 mile radius is not reachable by public transport within 60 minutes (47% reachable)
• 14% of the 60 minute public transport time falls beyond the radius

9. Toronto

• 55% of the 10 mile radius is not reachable by public transport within 60 minutes (45% reachable)
• 15% of the 60 minute public transport time falls beyond the radius

10. Washington DC

• 59% of the 10 mile radius is not reachable by public transport within 60 minutes (41% reachable)
• 6% of the 60 minute public transport time falls beyond the radius

11. Los Angeles

• 77% of the 10 mile radius is not reachable by public transport within 60 minutes (23% reachable)
• 4% of the 60 minute public transport time falls beyond the radius

If you want to play around with different times, distances or even different cities you can do using the tool here.

For data, TravelTime Maps states that:

In terms of the transport data we return walking, cycling, driving, Public transport, Public transport + Train. In order to return walking, cycling and driving we combine OSM maps roads information with historical traffic information and real time information to determine speeds. For Public transport and train we combine OSM information with public transport schedules, routes and stops.

If you’re interested in the topic you may also like the following books:

• Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars
• Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives
• Transit Maps of the World: Expanded and Updated Edition of the World’s First Collection of Every Urban Train Map on Earth

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