Public transport accessibility indicators to urban and regional services in Great Britain

Abstract

Public transport accessibility to urban and regional services has been found to relate to various social and economic processes, such as unemployment, transport mode choice, property prices, and public health. A frequent type of measures representing accessibility are location-based. While these offer advantages, like flexibility and ease of interpretation, their estimation usually requires specialized skills and substantial computational resources. To lower these barriers, we have prepared a suite of accessibility indicators for key services across Great Britain at a spatially disaggregated level. The dataset includes ready-to-use public transport accessibility indicators for employment, general practitioners (GP, or family physician), hospitals, grocery stores, supermarkets, primary and secondary schools, and urban centres. It also includes the raw travel time matrix from each origin to every potential destination, a primary input for such indicator estimation. Altogether, this resource offers various levels of application, from direct input into a range of research topics to the foundation for creating comprehensive custom indicators.

Great Britain Accessibility Indicators 2023: Data descriptor

“…The methods and sources used for the current dataset largely follow those outlined for the PTAI22 dataset (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02890-w) (J. Rafael Verduzco Torres and McArthur 2024). The remainder of the descriptor focuses on the key aspects and extensions unique to the AI23 dataset.…”

“…The current dataset, Great Britain Accessibility Indicators 2023 (AI23), provides small-area indicators to key services such as health, education, employment, and urban centres. The AI23 dataset is an updated and expanded version of the the Public Transport Accessibility Indicators for Great Britain 2022 (PTAI22) dataset, described at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02890-w (J. Rafael Verduzco Torres and McArthur 2024).…”

Transport Accessibility of Urban Districts in Megapolis: Insights from Moscow

“…Travel Time Metrics are foundational to accessibility analysis. Studies often employ travel time matrices, which encapsulate the time necessary for traversing from various origins to destinations within a cityscape, thereby enabling the estimation of accessibility indicators and indices [3][4][5], which describe an integrated model that assesses the impact of new infrastructures on travel time savings and accessibility. Isochronic maps, which depict areas reachable within certain travel time thresholds from a given point, further enrich this analysis by providing a visual representation of accessibility [6].…”

“…The Accessibility of Key Services, such as employment opportunities, healthcare facilities, educational institutions, and grocery stores, is also a crucial metric. The proximity and availability of these services are significant determinants of a region's livability and the quality of life of its residents [3,5] Composite Indices offer a more holistic view by amalgamating infrastructure, travel times, and service accessibility into overall indices. These indices provide a macroscopic measure of accessibility at different spatial scales from neighborhoods to the entire city [5].…”

“…Equity Metrics are employed to discern disparities in accessibility. These metrics are instrumental in comparing access among different demographic groups and geographic locales, thereby pinpointing and addressing transport equity issues [3,7].…”