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

March 3, 2023 6 Comments

London Public Transport Travel Time Map

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

London Public Transport Travel Time Map

  • 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

Berlin Public Transport Travel Time Map

  • 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

Paris Public Transport Travel Time Map

  • 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

Madrid Public Transport Travel Time Map

  • 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

Rome Public Transport Travel Time Map

  • 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

Houston Public Transport Travel Time Map

  • 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

New York Public Transport Travel Time Map

  • 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

Chicago Public Transport Travel Time Map

  • 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

Toronto Public Transport Travel Time Map

  • 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

Washington DC Public Transport Travel Time Map

  • 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

LA Public Transport Travel Time Map

  • 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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Comments

  1. Marcin says

    January 30, 2018 at 3:33 pm

    The cities with waterfronts have their centers really strangely placed. The NYC transit system is not designed to accommodate NJ. Nor does the CTA have Lake Michigan access. What was the process for choosing the radius center?

    Reply
    • Manuel Exposito says

      February 8, 2018 at 11:30 am

      Or if you take a city like Madrid, a lot of place in the radius are empty, nobody live there. So, it’s an interessant map but a little bit unfair … No public transport in the water in the middle of nowhere, logical but it gotta be ignored in the radius (sorry for my english)

      Reply
  2. Luke Vander Linden says

    May 10, 2018 at 1:52 pm

    Looks like they didn’t bother to include all forms of public transport either. Buses. Commuter rail.

    Reply
  3. Eddie says

    May 11, 2018 at 7:58 am

    I’ve travelled on the bus from Manhattan (Port Authority) to Denville in 45 minutes and from London (Waterloo) to Basingstoke by train in a similar time. These experiences alone make me doubt the value of these maps.

    Reply
  4. Anton says

    July 29, 2018 at 8:48 am

    A large part of the area you can’t reach in Berlin is a forest (Grunewald) but what really made me laugh is Lake Michigan counting against Chicago’s public transport.

    Reply
    • Cameron Fraser says

      July 18, 2019 at 11:19 am

      And Lake Ontario in Toronto’s.

      Reply

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