Accessibility and Impedance Forms: Empirical Applications to the German Commuting Network

Abstract

Accessibility plays a fundamental role in the transport network. In fact, accessibility may be used for investigating the (un)even distribution of economic activities, or the (dis)equilibrium in the development of different regional performances. In particular, accessibility analysis can be considered as a first exploratory step in the understanding of people's needs and behaviour, especially in the framework of transport network structures. From the methodological viewpoint, accessibility has a long tradition, starting in the 1950's with the pioneering work by Hansen, who defined accessibility as the potential of opportunity for interaction. Such a definition can also be considered as an integrated framework of all subsequent definitions. The aim of this paper is to explore accessibility in the German commuting network, by focusing attention on the relevance of the impedance form associated with it. The conventional (potential) accessibility function - in the light of the related economic activities - is used as a suitable instrument to identify the major German hub/attraction nodes. In this formulation, different types of decay functions are used as impedance forms. In our applications we consider home-to-work commuters travelling between 439 German districts, for both 2003 and 2007. We carry out a comparative analysis of the accessibility values in these years, by outlining the different emerging hierarchies, resulting from the use of different impedance forms. In addition, we explore which type of accessibility indicator best matches the connectivity network. The final aim is to identify - by means of different accessibility functions - homogeneous vs. heterogeneous characteristics of the German commuting network.

Regional Labour Markets and Job Accessibility in City Network Systems in Germany

“…The exponential function fits less well, a finding also obtained in previous research (Reggiani and Bucci, 2008 All in all, the previous findings, highlighting the very good fit of the power deterrence function for both years (2003 and 2007), support the presence of heterogeneous patterns in the spatial commuting CN. This result reinforces previous analyses concerning the heterogeneity of the commuting flows in the whole of Germany for the same years (Patuelli, 2007).…”

“…In the last century, spatial interaction analysis has been the central focus of several theories and models, aiming to map out and predict spatial flow patterns emerging as a outcome from given spatial configurations (Reggiani and Bucci, 2008). In this framework, a spatial interaction model We then adopted an unconstrained SIM of the following type:…”

Resilience and accessibility of Swedish and Dutch municipalities

“…This means that an unconstrained accessibility pattern will be able to better capture the potential for adaptation to a new spatial economic situation than would corresponding constrained models. We will employ here an exponential decay function, since the exponential function has a functional form that depicts commuting well, in the presence of a socio-economic homogeneous network (De Vries et al 2009;Fotheringham and O'Kelly 1989;Reggiani et al 2011;Wilson 1981). The decay parameters used in the accessibility estimations for The Netherlands and Sweden are determined using a half-life modelling approach (see, for instance, O'Kelly and Horner 2003; Östh et al 2014).…”

“…Such distance-friction or distance-mitigation forces are a standard feature in spatial interaction models (see e.g. Fotheringham and O'Kelly 1989;Reggiani et al 2011;Reilly 1931;Wilson 1981Wilson , 2009.…”

Accessibility Models Based On the Gravity Analogy: In Theory and Practice

“…Other known models using resistance factors are the Gaussian ( (Ingram 1971, Guy 1983) and the logistical ones (Bewley-Fiebig 1988, Hilbers-Veroen 1993. There are examples of other amendments to certain basic types, but this paper does not deal with them in detail (Reggiani, Bucci, Russo 2011).…”