Accessible accessibility research challenges

Abstract

Accessibility is a key concept in the field of transport geography. There is a rich, though not very mature, body of literature on this topic which is largely application-driven. The focus in the literature is generally on methods and concept and/or on applications. Applications generally focus on ex ante or ex post evaluations of the implications for accessibility of (candidate) policy plans. An important question is which are the main challenges in the area of accessibility research? This paper aims to examine this question and provide a research agenda for the coming one or two decades or so. The focus is on putting relatively new topics on the agenda, rather than making suggestions for improvements of given accessibility indicators. The paper does not aim to provide a complete list, but rather proposes avenues for future research focusing on (1) indicators to express accessibility, and (2) evaluation. In the area of indicators the challenges include the impact of ICT on accessibility; the inclusion of the robustness of the transport system in indicators; comparing perceptions of accessibility and traditional accessibility indicators; the option value; and the indicators of accessibility for goods transport, air transport, and slow modes. In the area of evaluation the paper discusses the pros and cons of the logsum as an accessibility measure, ethical aspects, comparisons of accessibility indicators to evaluate a specific case, and the needs of the clients of accessibility research.

Dynamic Accessibility using Big Data: The Role of the Changing Conditions of Network Congestion and Destination Attractiveness

“…One of the challenges when studying accessibility is to improve the method of introducing the spatialtemporal dimension, and particularly the analysis of daily changes (Geurs and van Wee 2004;Geurs et al 2015;van Wee 2016), an issue that has scarcely been addressed until now due to the limitations of traditional data sources. Some works have used these data sources to analyse the effect of congestion on accessibility, considering solely extreme situations (peak and valley times) based on the network (for example, Vandenbulcke et al 2009;Yiannakoulias et al 2013), but not the temporal changes in the performance of the infrastructures that occur throughout the day.…”

“…The information on transport networks has improved conclusively in recent years thanks to the emergence of big data generated by social media, smartphones, Satnav and other technologies (van Wee 2016). Navigation companies such as TomTom, NavTeq, Inrix and more; websites like Here, Bing Maps, Google Maps-Google Transit; collaborative projects like Open-Street-Map; and the public availability of Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data from transit authorities, among others, open up a growing field of research on time-of-day variations in private and public transit accessibility (Geurs et al 2016).…”

Urban Accessibility and Affordability: A Case Study for Istanbul

“…According to Geurs and Van Wee [24] accessibility measures can be categorized according to their components which are land-use, transport and individual elements. Besides its several advantages, an utility based approach is used in this study especially for its capability of representing all these three components [25].…”

Evaluation of Road Infrastructure Alternatives Through a Saving Gradient in Travel Times. Case Study: Second Connection Villamaría-Manizales, Colombia

“…This concept has evolved, since Hansen (1959) defined it as "... the potential opportunities for interaction ...", deriving in multiple approaches (Ingram, 1971) and types of measurement (Pirie, 1979). In addition, over the years, various researchers have made revisions of this concept (Dalvi & Martin, 1976;Geurs & Ritseman Van Eck, 2001;Geurs & van Wee, 2004;Koenig, 1980;Morris, Dumble, & Wigan, 1979), also defining the future focus and the different challenges it confronts in the field of research and urban planning (Geurs, De Montis, & Reggiani, 2015;van Wee, 2016). On the other hand, it was Weibull who in 1976 defined accessibility as the physical proximity between two geographical points and proposed the main axioms that must be met to make an accurate calculation of the measure, supplemented by Miller (1999) years later.…”