Assessing Physical Activity Achievement by using Transit

Abstract

Sedentary lifestyle is an important public health issue. To prevent this problem, major health organizations promote the inclusion of physical activity in daily life. Active modes are therefore a well-known way of achieving the health recommendations but walking to transit has also been studied recently. The goal of this study is to assess the level of physical activity achieved by using transit, to verify its contribution in reaching the recommendations. The paper aims to assess the energy expenditure associated with transit use by analyzing the related Metabolic Equivalent of Task. This allows us to express trips as physical activity expenditures and to integrate them in the daily pool of physical activities. For this study, only the main variables affecting the intensity of physical activity are considered. These are the walking time and slope encountered during the walking portion of transit trips. This estimation allows us to estimate the level of physical activity reached by transit users and assess the potential physical activity drivers could achieve if they switched to transit. Finally, the method is also applied to a current transportation issue in Montreal. Results show that transit users living in the Montreal area can achieve 54% of their recommended daily physical activity just by using transit. Current users of motorized modes, if they were to change to transit for their daily travels, could achieve 85% of the recommended daily physical activity.