Using Open Data to Analyze Public Bus Service from an Age Perspective: Melilla Case.

Abstract

The increase in life expectancy is undoubtedly a social achievement. If we want an inclusive and integrating society, the inclusion of the age perspective is key when planning the city and its services. Accordingly, this is reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially in SDG 11.2, which aims to provide and expand access to public transport with special attention to the needs of the elderly. In general, the data required to evaluate public transportation is managed by the bus operators and/or other entities that decide whether (or not) to share it. This hardnesses the independent evaluation of the bus service by third-party stakeholders. Thus, this article aims to objectively assess the bus network’s quality of service, relying exclusively on available sociodemographic and mobility open data, highlighting the elderly as target users in the city of Melilla (Spain). The open data available allowed the computation of indicators, such as journey times estimation or bus stop distribution to evaluate the universality in access to public transport. However, it has been noted that the lack of available data prevents the, calculation of other age-friendly indicators. The main result of this research is that bus service provides a considerable reduction in journey times for the elderly than for non-elderly.