Social equity and public transit in the inland empire: Introducing a transit equity analysis model

•Social equity in transit improved during the pandemic.•Race is a significant factor predicting the disperse of disadvantaged population in the Inland Empire.•Transit agencies in the Inland Empire modified services to favor the disadvantaged during the pandemic.•Policies adopted during COVID-19 could be strengthened and applied more widely to promote transit equity.•The transit equity index introduced in the paper can help analyze public transportation equity at the regional level.•Transit agencies readopted the original routes post pandemic, affecting disadvantaged, marginalized, underserved, underrepresented people and communities leading to a decrease in transit equity.•Transit service, transit demand, transit supply, race index and disadvantaged people index was used for modeling transit equity in a multiple regression analysis. Public transit is a critical part of transportation infrastructure and social equity. The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on transit systems throughout the nation. The study area for this paper, the Inland Empire (I.E.) in Southern California, has a significant minority and disadvantaged population, highlighting the importance of creating opportunities and new means of transportation. The transportation system has been built to support automobile travel, but public transit is an important mobility factor for many people. This paper aims to study the performance of public transit services and their impact on underserved communities. Pre-pandemic, during and post-COVID-19 vaccination rollout time periods, were selected to analyze the impact on transit equity. A transit equity analysis model was built using multiple linear regression analysis (MLR) on demographic and transit-related data from 645 census tracts. This model creates a transit equity index (TEI), which includes a transit service index (TSI), a socially disadvantaged index (DAI), and a race index (R.I.). The transit equity index shows a strong relationship between TSI and R.I. on DAI, reflecting the region's lack of efficient transit services in racially marginalized census tracts. As a result, new policies are needed to promote public transportation, create adequate infrastructure, and envision urban planning to decrease public transit social inequities within the I.E.