Jakarta, a rapidly urbanizing megacity in Southeast Asia, faces persistent challenges in ensuring equitable access to employment opportunities. This study evaluates spatial, socio-economic, and modal inequities in job accessibility by examining how disparities manifest across three transport modes – car, motorcycle, and public transport – and different income groups. Using a cumulative opportunity approach within a 41.2-minute travel threshold, the analysis draws on travel time data collected from the Google Maps API and origin-destination matrices derived from a microsimulation model. Results show that job accessibility is highly centralized, with significantly lower access in peripheral and low-density areas. Motorcycles provide the broadest and most equitably distributed access, especially for low- and medium-income populations, while public transport shows the most severe inequality. The Theil index reveals that job accessibility inequity in Jakarta is driven primarily by disparities within population density groups, highlighting the need for localized, neighbourhood-level interventions rather than broad spatial or income-based approaches. Notably, Gini coefficients across income groups are nearly identical, suggesting that transport inequity in Jakarta is shaped more by geography and network design than by socio-economic category alone. These findings highlight the need for expanding mass public transport coverage, improving first- and last-mile connectivity, and implementing localized interventions in underserved neighbourhoods. The study contributes empirical evidence to the literature on urban accessibility and equity in the Global South and supports the integration of multi-dimensional equity metrics into transport planning practices.
Andani et al. (Mon,) studied this question.