7.3.9. Expanding public transport

This intervention entails the expansion of mass transit options, publicly or privately provided, with the objective to increase people’s access to active transport options.

The effectiveness to model the intervention is based on findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis [Xiao, Goryakin and Cecchini, 2019 [66]] concluding that each person exposed to a new public transport option increases transport-related physical activity by 105.6 MET-minutes/week, which is roughly equivalent to an extra 35 minutes of walking per week. The change in total physical activity is likely to be smaller as individuals exposed to the intervention may choose to reduce other types of physical activity (e.g. leisure time physical activity). Therefore, this change in transport-related physical activity was converted into a change in total physical activity, using methodology described in [Graf and Cecchini, 2019 [23]]. Specifically, total physical activity was estimated to increase by about 60 MET-minutes per week, corresponding to an equivalent of about 20 minutes of walking per week.

This intervention is assumed to affect both children and adults. Children, in particular, may benefit from public transport both when they travel with their parents, and when they travel to school. In a number of countries, a compulsory minimum education age varies between five and six years, so the age of five was chosen as a lower cut-off for this intervention. Since public transport is already well developed in most OECD countries, a modest scenario is modelled of expanding access to public transport to an additional 1% of the eligible population (i.e. persons over five years old), every five years. The maximum effectiveness is assumed to be achieved one year after the start of implementation, after which the physical activity level will remain at the higher level until the end of life for all those affected.

No implementation costs are considered for this intervention. While the cost of building a new public transport network can be very expensive, the main goal of public transport is not to increase physical activity, but to help people move around.