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Abstract
This article introduces a novel geographical information system toolkit for measuring and mapping the accessibility of individuals to services. The toolkit contributes to earlier implementations by combining aspects of both place-based and person-based accessibility measures. To this end, place-based accessibility measures are derived from a person-based framework by considering space–time prisms that are centred at service facilities rather than individual anchor points. The implementation is also innovative by explicitly accounting for the opening hours of service delivery in its accessibility measurement. In addition, the toolkit is aimed to be user-friendly and to generate insightful and comprehensible results for non-technically oriented users, which is illustrated in a brief case study about library accessibility in Ghent (Belgium).
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Tele Atlas® for the road network data. Matthias Delafontaine and Tijs Neutens acknowledge the Research Foundation Flanders for funding the research presented in this article.
Notes
1. According to a 2004 study about public library services in Ghent (Vercruyssen Citation2005), a half an hour visit time should satisfy about 75% of the library visitors in Ghent.
2. Ghent is the largest university town in Belgium, with about 65,000 students in 2010 (Braeckman Citation2010).
3. One-way streets for motorised vehicles passable in both directions for bicyclists are common in Ghent.