Measuring accessibility to health care services for older bus passengers: A finer spatial resolution

Health care accessibility is a vital indicator for evaluating areas where there are medical shortages. However, due to the lack of population data with a satisfactory spatial resolution, efforts to accurately measure health care accessibility among older individuals have been hampered to some extent. To address this issue, we attempt to measure accessibility to health care services for older bus passengers in Nanjing, China, using a finer spatial resolution. More specifically, based on one month's worth of bus smart card data, a framework for identifying the home stations (i.e., a passenger's preferred station near their residence) of older passengers is developed to measure the aggregate demand at the bus stop scale. On this basis, a measurement that integrates the Gaussian two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) and the adjusted 2SFCA methods (referred to as the adjusted Gaussian 2SFCA method) is proposed to measure accessibility to health care services for older people. The results show that: (1) almost all home stations experience inflated demand, especially those located in the suburbs; (2) despite abundant health care resources, home stations in urban districts are rarely identified as high accessibility stations, due to high demand densities among the older population; and (3) more attention should be paid to two types of home stations – those with a medical institution and those with bed shortages, respectively. The first type is predominantly distributed in the periphery of the city, in the suburbs where the travel time required to access the nearest health care service by bus is longer. The second type is mostly located in the outskirts of urban districts and in the central area of one suburb. These findings could help policy makers to implement more appropriate measures to design and reallocate health care resources.     

Social inequalities of park accessibility in Shenzhen,China: The role of park quality,transport modes,and hierarchical socioeconomic characteristics

Identifying the geographic units with restricted access to intra-urban parks has become a hot issue in transport studies. Previous literature has examined the social inequalities of park accessibility under the Western context; however, the issue has seldomly investigated against the non-Western background, especially in China. Using a case of Shenzhen (China), this paper examines the accessibility to parks of three quality levels (official standard) under four transport modes (public transit, walking, bicycle, and private car). In particular, the daily travel time from each community (8117) to each park (625) was harvested from the Baidu Map during 18:30–20:30 in July 2016. We further, based on the travel time calculations, develop four baseline indicators (the weighted average, the minimum, the maximum, and the standard deviation travel time) and three tolerance indicators of park accessibility (weighted average travel time within visit tolerance thresholds, standard deviation travel time within visit tolerance thresholds, and number of parks within visit tolerance thresholds) to measure park accessibility for each community. Results show that the seven accessibility indicators generate different estimations and the quantified accessibility varies greatly with park quality levels and transport modes. Communities present greater variations in accessibility to the first quality level and second quality level parks via walking and public transit. In addition, hierarchical regression is utilized to quantify the relationships between park accessibility and sociodemographic characteristics at two geographic levels (community and district). It is found that the associations are subjected to park quality, transport modes, and geographic levels. In particular, we discover significant social inequalities in park accessibility under the mode of public transit, walking, and bicycle. Our study should provide some new insights into accessibility research and advance the understanding of unequal park provision in developing countries.     

Evaluation of access to health care in rural areas using enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method

The study concerns with the quantification of accessibility to health facilities which is a prime concern in rural areas. In order to assure access to health care, planning commissions and policy decision makers require definite and reliable measures of accessibility values, thus that appropriate health care shortage areas can be analyzed and a policy decision can be taken accordingly to pacify the problem. Thus in this paper enhanced two step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method, a special case of gravity model is used to quantify the present accessibility levels to health in rural areas. E2SFCA method which is an enhancement of two step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method differentiates the accessibility of the population within the catchment area by introducing a distance decay function. At the point when calibrating the distance decay from the travel behavior of patients in the study areas, it is revealed that sigmoidal functions are more likely suitable for the high population density regions and also plain terrains and decline functions for low population density regions and difficult desert or hilly areas. The paper yields health care shortage areas.     

Evaluating spatial accessibility to healthcare services under travel time uncertainty: A reliability-based floating catchment area approach

Most existing healthcare accessibility studies ignore the travel time uncertainty that are commonly encountered in road networks. This study aims to examine the impacts of travel time uncertainty on healthcare accessibility. A reliability-based two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method is proposed to evaluate healthcare accessibility under travel time uncertainty. The proposed measure generalizes the conventional 2SFCA measure by explicitly considering individuals' reliability constraints when scheduling visits to healthcare facilities in the face of travel time uncertainty. The proposed measure is further used to investigate travel time uncertainty impacts in a comprehensive case study. A big dataset of taxi trajectories is collected in the case study to extract dynamic information on travel time distributions. The results of the case study highlight the significant but heterogeneous impacts of travel time uncertainty on healthcare accessibility for various parts of the city at different times of the day. They also have several methodological implications for the evaluation of healthcare accessibility under travel time uncertainty.     

Modeling job accessibility using online map data: An extended two-step floating catchment area method with multiple travel modes

Current quantitative measures of job accessibility rarely consider the interaction between job opportunities and labor force, and the effects of dynamic travel mode choice. Drawing upon multiple open-source datasets, we develop a job accessibility index by extending the two-step floating catchment area method (2SFCA). The job accessibility indices are calculated for different commuting scenarios concerning distance, time, and travel modes. The results suggest that job accessibility is very sensitive to travel modes, and using a single travel mode would contribute to a biased job accessibility index. The job accessibility indices with combined travel modes are more geographically balanced than using a single travel mode. Furthermore, the new index is employed to examine the spatial pattern of job accessibility and explore the relationship between job accessibility, housing, and population in the Pudong district, Shanghai. The new job accessibility indices manifest the impacts of ring roads on the spatial distribution of job accessibility. A comparative analysis shows that the floating population has poor driving-based job accessibility but can access job opportunities using public transit. Also, poor job accessibility leads to low rent prices but has little impact on medium-high rent. Both transit-based and drive-based job accessibility indices are positively related to housing prices. Our study highlights the importance of considering dynamic travel mode choice in job accessibility research. The research outcomes also contribute to the literature on spatial mismatch by revealing the unique relationship between job accessibility, housing, and population in urban China.     

Literature review on urban transport equity in transitional China: From empirical studies to universal knowledge

Rapid urbanization and a drastic socioeconomic transition from the centrally planned system to a market system in China provide a rare opportunity of observing urban transport equity. Literature on urban transport equity in Chinese cities is increasing. However, our understanding of urban transport equity in China is dominated by individual empirical studies, and an overall picture remains absent. This paper contributes the first literature review on urban transport equity in transitional China. Two key questions are answered. They are how transport equity is understood and examined in China, and what progress can be made to obtain universal knowledge of urban transport equity. This paper addresses the two questions by engaging with recent theoretical dialogue between the political philosophy of justice and Western transport equity research. This theoretical dialogue reconceptualizes transport equity into the equitable accessibility distribution mediated by institutional architecture to achieve equality of social opportunity among people. Based on a critical review of equity-concerned China transportation research and its reconceptualization, we propose an agenda for furthering urban transport equity research in transitional China. This research agenda calls for a shifted research focus (a) on evaluating the accessibility distribution of specific transport projects and policy, (b) on unpacking the political economy of transitional urban transport governance that determines the triumph/failure of the pro-growth/pro-equity accessibility distribution in the real setting, (c) on tracking the impact of accessibility distribution on disadvantaged groups' socioeconomic status and social mobility and putting forward appropriate policy/institution to improve the accessibility of disadvantaged groups, and (d) on revealing how the emerging social trends (e.g., information technology revolution and the aging society) reshape the individual capability to move/accessibility distribution.     

Measuring spatial proportionality between service availability,accessibility and mobility: Empirical evidence using spatial equity approach in Iran

Spatial proportionality plays an important role in recognizing inequities, the quality of actions to reduce them, and halting complicated and unclear cycle of inequities and even reversing their increasing trend. The aim of this study is to measure spatial equity based on spatial proportionalities (SESP), taking into account three-fold factors including service availability, accessibility and mobility. The SESP identifies proportionality between the quality of service distribution and allocating opportunities and the quality of getting access to locations and people's selections according to status quo. Thus, it examines the balance between supply and demand, optimization of distance and the number of choices people make out of total services and the role of move ability to use in compensating for shortages either in terms of service capacity or the level of human deprivation and reduction of effects of distance from services and etc. Gorgan as an old and intermediate city in northern Iran was selected as the case study. The results indicated that the study area does not enjoy suitable proportionality, revealing that the central and northern districts have much more enjoyment than the southern, eastern and western districts. Thus, there is disproportionality between supply and demand, high difference in provided choices and disproportionality between less enjoyed areas and their move ability to use services and inability to create walking travel pattern in Gorgan. Understanding of spatial proportionality can help the planners and policy makers to change their passive role into active in order to reduce inequities, adding to their knowledge on the underlying factors of inequity as well as the factors that hinder and reverse the cycle of inequity.     

Transportation and recreation: a case study of visitors driving for pleasure at Acadia National Park

Automobiles and roads are as much of a way of experiencing national parks as they are a means of conveyance. This study examines experiential aspects of transportation on Acadia National Park’s primary scenic road – Ocean Drive. Interviews with vehicle-based road users were conducted to identify indicators to measure and manage experiential quality on Ocean Drive. Also, a survey was conducted to make comparisons with important variables identified on “transportation-only” urban roads. Results suggest that (1) Ocean Drive is important to park visitors’ experience; (2) experiential indicators for Ocean Drive include vehicle crowding, scenery, and travel freedom/convenience; and (3) experiential aspects of transportation on scenic roads in parks may differ substantially from urban roads. Study findings suggest a need to deliberately and thoughtfully plan and manage for quality recreational experiences on roads in national parks and related areas.     

基于空间成本分配的北京城市轨道交通票价方案选择评价

成本的空间分配是公共交通公平的重要内容,受不同票价方案影响。为了比较不同票价方案下的空间成本分配差异,运用可达性方法,采用北京地铁及其计程票制数据在城市轨道交通站点间票价的基础上计算区域站均票价,分析不同票价方案下北京区县空间成本分布格局差异,给出区县票价方案择优结果,并对2014年北京城市轨道交通票价听证会选择的票价方案进行评价。结果显示,北京各区县并不适合一种票价方案,各区域有最佳的票价方案选择,选择一种票价方案会导致区域间不公平,为城市轨道交通票价调整政策提供一定的参考。     

Public transit accessibility approach to understand the equity for public healthcare services: A case study of Greater Mumbai

Urban public health is one of the most critical yet neglected aspects of urban planning in developing countries such as India. Inequity in access to government healthcare facilities affects the overall urban population and can substantially negatively impact the vulnerable population, who mostly rely on government healthcare services. In this paper, the accessibility measure for healthcare services by public transport is developed using travel time and the number of transit stops (accounting for transit connectivity) for Greater Mumbai. We also identified socially vulnerable wards (administrative units) using a Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), developed based on 16 indicators using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Developed regression models showed that the proposed accessibility measure explains the coverage and usage of healthcare services better than the traditional accessibility measure, which is based on only aggregate level travel time impedances. South Mumbai has relatively better accessibility for public hospitals and dispensaries, whereas, lower level of accessibility is observed in the eastern part for public healthcare services. Assessment for the spatial inequity based on the Gini index, bivariate Moran's I, and mean access value reveals a higher degree of spatial inequity for accessing government hospitals for the slum population. The study developed a decision framework to suggest effective policy measures, which can be prioritised based on SVI to reduce the disparity in the spatial distribution of accessibility to government healthcare systems for vulnerable groups. Our findings can aid transportation and urban planners, health researchers, and policymakers to improve accessibility in under-served areas and give special attention to the needs of the vulnerable population.     

Fair accessibility – Operationalizing the distributional effects of policy interventions

A fair distribution of public transport benefits is a commonly stated goal of agencies and operators of public transport. However, it is less complicated and costly to provide accessibility in some parts of cities and their surroundings than in other parts. Densely populated areas, and areas situated closer to the city center therefore often have higher public transport accessibility than remote or sparsely populated areas. Neglecting these realities results with an unrealistic assessment of equity in service provision and hampers their consideration when setting policy goals. In this study, we propose a framework for investigating equity in the distribution of accessibility, where the suggested goal is to provide residents with equal accessibility for equally dense and central areas. For the Stockholm County, we show that accessibility may seem to be distributed horizontally inequitable and vertically regressive. However, once controlling for how dense and close to the city center residents live, while still being horizontally inequitable the distribution of accessibility in Stockholm County is found progressive, i.e., benefiting those with lower incomes. We demonstrate the proposed method for the case of skip-stop train operations and find that it shifts our constructed accessibility measure toward a more horizontally inequitable and vertically progressive state. We conclude that our proposed method can be a potent way for public transport agencies to measure and concretize equity goals and evaluate policy changes.     

Dynamic accessibility: Incorporating day-to-day travel time reliability into accessibility measurement

Travel times and hence accessibility in urban areas are susceptible to traffic disruption caused by events such as congestion, roadworks and traffic accidents. Being highly valued by travellers, travel time reliability affects their participation in activities and thus, plays a decisive role in accessibility. The aim of the study was to develop an approach to integrate travel time reliability into the measurement of accessibility. To achieve this, we extended a commonly-used accessibility indicator to include day-to-day variability in travel times. In a case study of the accessibility to the newly-built Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) in Glasgow, we used real-time travel times with high temporal resolution collected over a long period of time to demonstrate the applicability and the utility value of this approach compared to the standard accessibility measurement. Our results revealed that travel time reliability varied both temporally and spatially, and zones experienced relatively high levels of accessibility loss due to higher travel time variability. The proposed approach provides a more realistic representation of actual network performance, allows for assessing the effect of travel time reliability on accessibility throughout the day and will help transport planners to trace equity impacts on accessibility due to travel time unreliability.     

Public transport accessibility accounting for level of service and competition for urban opportunities: An equity analysis for education in Santiago de Chile

Several cities around the world have changed their transportation planning paradigm, understanding that the prime goal is to provide access to opportunities for everyone. To address this goal, public transport plays a fundamental role and, therefore, it is key for developing a sustainable and equitable city.This paper proposes a methodology to analyze access to opportunities through public transport incorporating the user's valuation of attributes that impact the level of service on his/her trip and the competitiveness for urban opportunities. Using data from Santiago, Chile, we applied the proposed methodology to analyze accessibility to higher-quality public primary schools. We compare total travel time (TTT) with a proposed measure of total generalized travel time (TGTT) using simple potential and competitive accessibility indicators, accounting for the subjective valuation of walking time, travel time, waiting time, comfort and transfers, and translating them into in-vehicle time units.We find that the inclusion of competition has a more substantial impact than including the subjective valuation of the level of service in the accessibility to educational opportunities. Using competitive measures with TGTT, we found that around 20% of the zones in Santiago have at least a 50% deficit of higher-quality public education, and 71% of them are in peripheral areas. Furthermore, these zones, where medium and low-income population usually lives, can experience, on average, 1–2 transfers, 4–5 passengers per square meter, and 15-min waiting. We conclude that the proposed methodology provides a more comprehensive way to understand accessibility by incorporating the traveling experience, allowing to determine how and where to intervene to effectively improve accessibility, with a focus on urban equity.     

Measuring the accessibility and spatial equity of urban services under competition using the cumulative opportunities measure

As accessibility becomes an increasingly relevant concept in the analysis of sustainable transport and urban development, the accuracy of accessibility measures becomes increasingly vital. While more complex measures are gradually gaining popularity with increasing data and computational resources, policy makers and planners are still prone to opt for less complex methods that are easy to use and interpret. The cumulative opportunities measure is the most widely applied accessibility measure in planning practice, but it is also among the least accurate due to its lack of consideration of the impact of competition for those opportunities. This study seeks to highlight the impact of addressing competition for different urban services in the cumulative opportunities measure. A competition component is added to the measure, which is applied to a case study of three types of urban services in the Perth metropolitan area; jobs, primary/secondary education and shopping. The results show that considering competition changes the spatial patterns of accessibility and its equity. Since this approach reveals demand-supply imbalances, it can more accurately determine spatial inequalities in accessibility, and hence increases the utility of the cumulative opportunities measure. We also find that the three services had varying levels and spatial patterns of accessibility and spatial equity, thus relying on any single one of them for assessing spatial structural performance can be misleading.     

Spatial disparity of income-weighted accessibility in Brazilian Cities: Application of a Google Maps API

Equity in public transit ridership has attracted the attention of planning authorities as a mechanism to tackle social exclusion. The association of accessibility indexing with different income groups is fundamental to analyses of socio-spatial inequalities and identifying gaps in public transit services. However, few studies have addressed accessibility inequalities in medium-sized cities of the global South. This paper aims to identify spatial gaps in public transit service in seven medium-sized Brazilian cities by analyzing the relative accessibility of public transit and private automobiles for travel to central business districts (CBDs), which are primary employment and service centers. Demographic and socioeconomic data on the seven cities were extracted from the country's 2010 population census. To measure accessibility to CBDs, a Google Maps application programming interface was used to produce realistic estimates of travel times for public transit and private automobiles over different time periods. This method is more accurate than traditional accessibility calculation methods and provides real-time information on traffic conditions, such as speed limits, traffic jams, and waiting times. The study found significant intra-regional differences in accessibility to CBDs by public transit and private automobiles, providing a scientific basis to optimize the socio-spatial distribution of public transit services in seven cities in five different regions of Brazil.     

Grocery store accessibility: Different metrics – Different modal disparity results and spatial patterns

Most accessibility studies focus on within transport mode travel performance variations. However, modal accessibility disparity analysis adds value to the single-mode analysis by assessing the interaction between different transport modes and land use. A review of modal disparity studies shows that different accessibility metrics lead to different results, and so it is unclear how this impacts modal accessibility disparity variation. Moreover, the correspondence of the disparity spatial pattern between the different metrics is unclear. This research examines how three typical accessibility metrics (closest facility, cumulative opportunity, space-time constrained) impact modal disparity of grocery store accessibility in Warsaw, Poland. Further, local indicators of spatial association are used to identify areas of similarity and difference between the metrics. This study finds that cumulative opportunities during non-rush hours indicate the best car advantage for all travel times but indicate the best transit advantage during rush hours for 15 min. Generally, the space-time metric indicates better transit accessibility than the closest facility metric which in turn shows better transit accessibility than cumulative opportunities. The city center has significant spatial similarity while peripheral, especially dense, areas have significant spatial difference. Similarity areas have higher transit stop and population densities, while difference areas have average-to-low stop, population, road and store densities.     

Regional labour markets and job accessibility in City Network systems in Germany

Spatial labour markets are subjected to the forces of regional economic activity and competing network effects. Commuting is, therefore, an important equilibrating vehicle in a City Network constellation. Cities act as attractors of commuters, as most economic activity occurs in cities, thus providing a high share of attractive workplaces. Cities that are centrally connected in a network may act as both centripetal and centrifugal forces in the whole system. The present paper focuses on what is named the City Network (CN) approach. A central idea is the accessibility concept, which is interpreted here as the potential of opportunity for interaction, which has a positive impact on economic growth. In our paper, the accessibility concept and the CN concept are linked together by positioning accessibility in the CN system. Since accessibility measures give geographical insights into the distribution of economic activities and the related (dis)equilibrium of regional development patterns, the connection with the labour market is evident, and, therefore, a second focus of our analysis.In an applied setting, our paper aims to investigate spatial accessibility patterns in the main CN in Germany. The 17 districts which belong to the country’s CN were chosen from the 439 German labour market districts on the basis of three criteria: (a) their connection to the high speed railway network; (b) the most accessible districts according to previous results (2002); (c) relevant districts for the German economy. Our applied modelling research concerns home-to-work commuters travelling between the selected districts belonging to the German CN, for both 2003 and 2007. Here, a comparative analysis of the ranking of the most accessible districts - also for different intra-zonal travel times - is carried out in order to map out the changes in accessibility between 2003 and 2007, especially in the light of new high speed connections and commuting flow dynamics.     

Accessibility across transport modes and residential developments in Nairobi

A key goal of urban transportation planning is to provide people with access to a greater number of opportunities for interaction with people and places. Measures of accessibility are gaining attention globally for use in planning, yet few studies measure accessibility in cities in low-income countries, and even fewer incorporate semi-formal bus systems, also called paratransit. Drawing on rich datasets available for Nairobi, Kenya this analysis quantifies place-based accessibility for walking, paratransit, and driving using three different measures: a mobility measure quantifying how many other locations in Nairobi can be reached in 60 min, a contour measure quantifying the number of health facilities that can be reached in 60 min, and a gravity measure quantifying the number of health facilities weighted by a time-decay function. Health facilities are used because they are an essential service that people need physical access to and as a representation of the spatial distribution of activities more broadly. The findings show that place-based accessibility is highest for driving, then paratransit, then walking, and that there are high levels of access to health facilities near the Central Business District (CBD) for all modes. Additionally, paratransit accessibility is comparatively better in the contour and gravity measures, which may mean that paratransit is efficiently providing access based on the spatial distribution of services. The contour measure results are also compared across different residential levels, which are grouped based on neighborhood characteristics and ordered by income. Counterintuitively, the wealthiest areas have very low levels of place-based accessibility for all modes, while poor areas have comparatively better walking access to health facilities. Interestingly, the medium low residential level, characterized in part by tenement apartment buildings, has significantly higher accessibility than other residential types. One way to reduce inequality in access across income groups is to increase spatial accessibility for the modes used by low- and middle-income households, for example with policies that prioritize public transport and non-motorized travel, integrate paratransit with land use development, and provide safe, efficient, and affordable options.     

Assessing equity in transport accessibility to work and study: The Bogotá region

This research was aimed at exploring levels of equity in accessibility to employment and education in the city-region of Bogotá, Colombia's capital city. Building on consolidated methodologies for the assessment of potential accessibility, we estimate accessibility indicators at the zone level, evaluate how potential accessibility varies among income groups, and present evidence related to transport mode, in order to analyze social and spatial inequalities produced by the distribution of accessibility to employment and education activities. The research incorporates a method to evaluate how accessibility varies among zones according to average income and mode of transport in order to produce evidence-based arguments that can inform transport policy in the city-region of Bogotá, and other similar contexts in the Global South. Our results show strong distributional effects of the socio-spatial and economic structure of the city-region, its transport infrastructure and services, and the effect of current transport and land-use policies for citizens of different income groups. The tools and empirical evidence in this research seek to contribute to informed policy development in Latin America and other developing contexts, and feeding current debates on the role of accessibility in addressing social and spatial inequalities stemming from urban mobility.