Evaluating Accessibility and Equity Impacts of Pandemic Transit Service Adjustments: Case Study of the San Francisco Bay Area

The COVID-19 pandemic forced transit agencies to quickly adapt to new challenges, with service reductions as part of the response to reduced ridership, rising fiscal pressures, and staffing shortages. However, approaches to service adjustment varied significantly across agencies. While pandemic literature often focuses on ridership impacts, less attention has been given to how transit service changes affect accessibility and equity. This study addresses this gap by examining the impacts of pandemic service adjustments on accessibility and equity; it is important to address this, given the absence of formal requirements for equity evaluation of temporary service changes. The analysis explored spatiotemporal patterns in service adjustment and evaluated the equity impacts on job accessibility for three major San Francisco Bay Area transit agencies in the U.S. Using publicly available transit schedule and census data, metrics for transit service levels, job accessibility, and accessibility inequality were used to trace changes from 2020 to 2023. The findings reveal distinct approaches to service reduction and restoration, with agencies prioritizing service differently based on travel needs and racial/ethnic minority populations. While equity briefly improved for some agencies during the pandemic, these changes were temporary, with all agencies returning to their pre-pandemic states of inequity. These insights can guide transit agencies in developing equitable service adjustment strategies and highlight the need for decision-making tools to help transit operators balance competing needs and respond flexibly to disruptions.