Accessibility Indicators For Transport Planning

Accessibility is a concept central to integrated transport and land use planning. The goal of improving accessibility Ð for all modes, for all people Ð has made its way into mainstream transport policy and planning in communities worldwide. This unique book introduces new accessibility approaches to transport planning across Europe and the United States. The expert contributors present advanced interdisciplinary approaches in accessibility research and modelling with best practices in accessibility planning and evaluation, to better support integrated transport and land-use policy-making. This book will prove an absorbing read for scholars, researchers and students working on accessibility issues across different academic fields including transport geography, spatial economics and social science. Transport and urban planners will also find the book to be an invaluable reference tool.

The integration of land use and transport planning is key to making cities sustainable and liveable. Accessibility can provide an effective framework for this integration. However, today there is a significant gap between the advances in scientific knowledge on accessibility and its effective application in planning practice. In order to close this gap, Designing Accessibility Instruments introduces a novel methodology for the joint assessment and development of accessibility instruments by researchers and practitioners. The book: provides a theoretical and professional analysis of the main concepts behind the definition, use and measurement of accessibility; undertakes a comprehensive inventory and critical analysis of accessibility instruments, focusing on the bottlenecks in their transposition to planning practice; introduces and applies a novel methodology for the assessment and improvement of the practical use and usefulness of accessibility instruments; presents six in-depth illustrative case study applications of the methodology, representing a range of cities with different geographical and institutional settings, and different levels of urban and transport planning integration. The book is supported by a companion website – www.accessibilityplanning.eu – which extrapolates its content to a broader scope and keeps it updated and valid with new iterations of the methodology and further advances on the initial and new case studies.

Cities are places of opportunity. They provide not just jobs but a whole range of public, cultural, social and consumption amenities. Transport is what connects people to these opportunities and cities provide access with varying degrees of success – especially when it comes to modes of transport that favour a green transition. This report argues that building sustainable transport networks for accessible cities requires a holistic planning approach, a sound institutional framework, reliable sources of funding, strong governmental capacity, and should build on community engagement.

Bringing together a comparative analysis of the accessibility by public transport of 23 cities spanning four continents, this book provides a "hands-on" introduction to the evolution, rationale and effectiveness of a new generation of accessibility planning tools that have emerged since the mid-2000s. The Spatial Network Analysis for Multimodal Urban Transport Systems (SNAMUTS) tool is used as a practical example to demonstrate how city planners can find answers as they seek to improve public transport accessibility. Uniquely among the new generation of accessibility tools, SNAMUTS has been designed for multi-city comparisons. A range of indicators are employed in each city including: the effectiveness of the public transport network; the relationship between the transport network and land use activity; who gets access within the city; and how resilient the city will be. The cities selected enable a comparison between cities by old world–new world; public transport modes; governance approach; urban development constraints. The book is arranged along six themes that address the different planning challenges cities confront. Richly illustrated with maps and diagrams, this volume acts as a comprehensive sourcebook of accessibility indicators and a snapshot of current policy making around the world in the realm of strategic planning for land use transport integration and the growth of public transport. It provides a deeper understanding of the complexity, opportunities and challenges of twenty-first-century accessibility planning.

Leading researchers from around the world show, in this volume, the importance of accessibility in contemporary issues such as rural depopulation, investments in public services and public transport, and transport infrastructure investments in Europe. The trade-offs between accessibility, economic development and equity are comprehensively examined, and a variety of approaches to measuring accessibility and equality presented. The book’s interdisciplinary contributions also provide different geographical contexts, from the US to various European and developing countries, and cover ex ante and ex post evaluation of transport investment. Improving transport accessibility is a main objective in transport policy and planning in developed and developing countries all over the world. Investment is motivated by the need to develop and/or reduce spatial or social inequalities. However, the economic and equity implications of investments in transport are not straightforward. The concepts of accessibility and equity can be defined and operationalized in many different ways, influencing outcomes and conclusions. Moreover, equity and efficiency goals are often conflicting. Accessibility models not only help to explain spatial and transport patterns in developed and developing countries but are also powerful tools to explain the equity and efficiency impacts of urban and transport policies and projects. This state-of-the-art overview of the accessibility–economic efficiency–equity relationship will appeal to researchers as well as transport and urban planners interested in accessibility issues and transport/regional developments.

Cities are places of opportunity. They provide not just jobs but a whole range of public, cultural, social and consumption amenities. Transport is what connects people to these opportunities and cities provide access with varying degrees of success - especially when it comes to modes of transport that favour a green transition. This report argues that building sustainable transport networks for accessible cities requires a holistic planning approach, a sound institutional framework, reliable sources of funding, strong governmental capacity, and should build on community engagement. Urban accessibility requires coherent allocation of responsibilities across levels of government to support strategic planning. The report proposes concrete actions that cities can take to adapt their institutional framework, to improve transport planning and ensure they have access to sustainable sources of funding to implement their plans.

In From Mobility to Accessibility, an expert team of researchers flips the tables on the standard models for evaluating regional transportation performance. Jonathan Levine, Joe Grengs, and Louis A. Merlin argue for an "accessibility shift" whereby transportation planning, and the transportation dimensions of land-use planning, would be based on people's ability to reach destinations, rather than on their ability to travel fast. Existing models for planning and evaluating transportation, which have taken vehicle speeds as the most important measure, would make sense if movement were the purpose of transportation. But it is the ability to reach destinations, not movement per se, that people seek from their transportation systems. While the concept of accessibility has been around for the better part of a century, From Mobility to Accessibility shows that the accessibility shift is compelled by the fundamental purpose of transportation. The book argues that the shift would be transformative to the practice of both transportation and land-use planning but is impeded by many conceptual obstacles regarding the nature of accessibility and its potential for guiding development of the built environment. By redefining success in transportation, the book provides city planners, decisionmakers, and scholars a path to reforming the practice of transportation and land-use planning in modern cities and metropolitan areas.