This paper sets out a review of issues connected with measuring accessibility, particularly in appraisal of transport or development schemes. Accessibility in this context is taken to mean ease of access to transport in order to reach key destinations and services. This is an area that has assumed greater importance in overall policy making in recent years; indeed, the UK Department for Transport (DfT) announced recently that a working group would be set up to develop good practice guidance on monitoring accessibility to key services. Various bodies have developed criteria in an attempt to quantify accessibility, for use in development planning and transport scheme appraisal, or simply trying to measure how 'well connected' an existing community is. Usually, criteria are specified such that a public transport service of a given standard (e.g. hourly) should lie within a certain maximum distance of any household. For the research carried out for the Highways Agency, a series of case study sites were chosen across the UK, aimed at demonstrating a variety of different issues (such as urban/rural context, new/unimproved roads, high/low public transport provision etc). As well as service frequency, the destinations served and the quality of the journey were considered important by transport users. Time required to reach a public transport service was a more useful measure than distance to the service. Some of the worst problems with access to services were found in affluent areas. Even where an hourly bus service existed, it did not provide services compatible with access to the workplace. Attitudes to public transport and community severance are also discussed. The usefulness of the data collected in the construction of an accessibility appraisal is considered. For the covering abstract see ITRD E126595.
Abstract