Measuring the Destination Access and Equity Impacts of Public Transit Service Changes: A Case Study of Title VI Policy at MBTA

Under Title VI of the U.S. Civil Rights Act, public transportation agencies that receive federal funding in the U.S. are obligated to ensure that changes to transit service do not disproportionately burden populations of color or low-income households. However, existing Title VI policies only require that agencies analyze the social equity impacts of large-scale, often pre-planned changes, such as new or extended routes. The equity impacts of the often smaller-scale service changes to multiple routes that transit agencies make on a regular basis in response to operating conditions have attracted limited attention in the research literature. Using a case study of eight service changes implemented by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority between December, 2022, and December, 2024, this study demonstrates that regular service changes can sometimes have substantial and racially disparate impacts on job access, in some cases even exceeding the impacts of the “major” projects that are covered by existing Title VI policies. The results also suggest that “quantity-of-service” measures, such as revenue vehicle hours, which current Title VI policies suggest using to define “major” changes and disparate impacts, are flawed indicators of the user benefits and burdens of transit service changes, with measures of destination accessibility representing a more robust alternative.