Examination of spatial accessibility at micro- and macro-levels using the enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method

Abstract

Floating catchment area (FCA) metrics are a family of measures used to quantify spatial accessibility. Spatial accessibility fuses the concepts of accessibility and availability to describe the relationship between the supply and demand of resources. FCA metrics have been applied to measure accessibility of numerous amenities including health services, public transportation, and recreation areas. Macro-level data such as census tracts and census blocks are often used to represent population locations in the calculation of FCA metrics. This approach is susceptible to masking geographic variability that may exist at less aggregated levels, such as at the individual level. This research explores how level of data aggregation can impact the measurement and interpretation of FCA based metrics. Our case study uses the E2SFCA method to measure and compare the spatial accessibility of public parks using micro-and macro-level population representations. Our analysis shows a general agreement in the FCA results among various levels of data aggregation. As expected, error in the FCA measurements generally increased as larger areal units were used; however, our results also show a somewhat nuanced picture, as particularities arising from the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem and the gravity-based calculation of the E2SFCA appear to affect the resulting differences among FCA values. Because obtaining and using individual based data can be challenging for researchers, macro-level data are often the only reliable alternative. Our findings provide insight into the limitations associated with using macro-level data to measure and interpret spatial accessibility.

Spatial Accessibility Analysis of Parks with Multiple Entrances Based on Real-Time Travel: The Case Study in Beijing

“…On the one hand, studies have shown that the presence of parks increases the opportunities for residents' activities and communication with other people, which can enhance their health, both aggregation has also been noted. An E2SFCA method was utilized to measure and compare the spatial accessibility of the park at the micro and macro levels [42].…”

Measure of accessibility to postal services in France: A potential spatial accessibility approach applied in an urban region

“…All these studies can be classified into three groups. Some of them are aimed mainly at improving the FCA methodology and measure (Bryant & Delamater, 2019; Fransen et al, 2015) and apply it primarily to illustrating methodological improvements. Others focus on measurement tools with GIS developments (Higgs et al, 2013; Langford et al, 2018) or mobile phone data to map the spatial distribution of residents (Wu et al, 2018).…”

“…While until recently the 2SFCA measures were mostly applied in healthcare contexts, some applications have been developed in non‐health‐related services since the 2010s. See the works of Bryant and Delamater (2019), Wu, Liu, and Peng (2018), Dony, Delmelle, and Delmelle (2015), Ye, Chunliang, Rui, and Qi (2014) or Dai (2011) on urban parks or green spaces, Langford, Higgs, and Radcliffe (2018) on sporting facilities, or Kocatepe, Ulak, Ozguven, Horner, and Arghandeh (2017) to investigate the exposure of different population groups to severe crash injury hotspots. Some researchers have also explored this FCA method to analyse the accessibility of other basic services or public services such as public transport (Langford, Higgs, & Fry, 2012), libraries (Higgs, Langford, & Fry, 2013), and to a lesser degree, day‐care centres (Fransen, Neutens, De Maeyer, & Deruyter, 2015).…”

Evaluating healthcare resource inequality in Beijing, China based on an improved spatial accessibility measurement

“…A 500 × 500 m or 1,000 × 1,000 m grid is usually used as the research unit for urban studies based on big data, as well as for accessibility research (Guo et al., 2019; Niu et al., 2018; Weiss et al., 2018). It has also been found that the error in the 2SFCA measurements generally increases when using a larger areal unit (Bryant & Delamater, 2019). Therefore, we used 500 × 500 m grids as the spatial units to generate a detailed accessibility distribution.…”