This paper explores the impact of transit accessibility on the transit use by disadvantaged populations. The transit service coverage by walking and biking is estimated based on a mode-related distance decay function that depicts the transit use deterioration with the increasing distance to transit stops. In this study, the relationship of transit share of commuting trips and first-and-last mile access, socioeconomic characteristics, built environment, and other transit related variables are developed by using the geographically weighted regression (GWR) technique. The GWR deals with the spatial-autocorrelation and yields better accuracy compared with other conventional approaches. The surveyed workers’ commuting data in Hamilton County, Ohio has been used in the modeling tests. The results indicate strong and positive influence of the transit service coverage on the transit use, implying great benefits of the improved transit accessibility for disadvantaged groups to expose them to more job opportunities.

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