Accessibility to services of general interest in polycentric urban system planning: the case of Portugal

Abstract

Today, major planning agendas in Europe steer the future of territorial organization towards an urban polycentric perspective. The accessibility to services of general interest (SGI), a significant source of spatial inequality in Europe, is one of the key challenges to address. However, instruments needed to support the implementation and monitoring of territorial policy measures regarding the distribution of, and accessibility to SGI are still underdeveloped. Studies generally relate to the (intra)regional and not the national scale. When they do so, they lose local specificity as they often consider the existence/availability of services at a given scale and not the actual capacity to reach their (often just estimated) location through the transport network. In the context of the revision of Portugal's National Plan for Territorial Planning Policies, this paper presents a comprehensive multi-criteria location-based approach for measuring the factual accessibility to a representative range of SGI at the national Portuguese scale. Results are evaluated considering the dichotomy between centrality and periphery, high and low density, and the regional disparities found. High accessibility values do not necessarily mean greater territorial cohesion. Contributions to the development of national planning policies that respond to cohesion challenges are also debated.

Accessibility Dynamics and Regional Cross-Border Cooperation (CBC) Perspectives in the Portuguese—Spanish Borderland

“…The promotion of networking and flow initiatives and public transport, through the introduction of joint solutions that can be boosted by the use of ICT, is also a priority. Regarding cross-border multimodal freight transport platform priorities, the opportunity to have more rapid access to the sea, through the port of Sines, is of major importance to the border territory and that is dependent on the improvement of the Sines-Badajoz multimodal transport corridor [12,67].…”

“…As previously pointed out, the border territory of Alentejo and Extremadura is characterized by demographic and economic activity scarcity. "The recent addition of Campo Maior is a positive aspect of Eurocity enrollment because the capacity for providing services in this border territory is higher and that provides more critical mass to carry out concrete cooperation activities, giving more equilibrium to population distribution and possible demand" [12,67].…”

Disparities in Geographical Access to Hospitals in Portugal

“…Identifying where the truly underserved populations are located is an essential first step toward meaningful and effective government intervention programs that can narrow gaps in accessing healthcare and promote overall population health [3]. Thus, it is widely recognized as an important spatial barrier to healthcare services [11,26] and, therefore, a significant source of spatial inequality [27] and a major health determinant to be tackled [28]. Its study is essential for evaluating population exposure to local environments [29,30].…”

Mapping health vulnerabilities: exploring territorial profiles to support health policies

“…. to calculate the accessibility to health services, the methodology applied in the National Programme for Spatial Planning Policies was used 16 .…”

“…The extent to which impacts have been unfairly distributed 12 , and how vulnerability issues differ within countries and even within regions, has been the subject of debate among several authors 8,13,14 . The territorial vulnerability has become increasingly visible through events such as spatial segregation, poverty concentration, or lack of accessibility 15,16 . However, if social vulnerabilities have been extensively studied, the spatial dimension of exclusion and overall vulnerability in various domains has so far been mostly neglected.…”