Working with the daily variation in infrastructure performance on territorial accessibility. The cases of Madrid and Barcelona

Abstract

Purpose Accessibility measurements are good tools for analysing the performance of possible policies on land use / transport / society systems. Until now, accessibility has been approached from a static perspective, even when variations in it depend on short term temporal changes in network function. Solutions based on static measurements, with journey costs taken as units based on free-flow travel time; do not reflect real network performance at different times of the day. Methods In order to broaden our understanding of accessibility and study real-world dynamism in depth, information from new sources has been incorporated into traditional accessibility measurements, with actual observed data on the daily variations in speed profiles. These variations have been used to assess the impact of congestion on accessibility, with dynamic scenarios calculated every 15 min. Results The variations in daily accessibility in the metropolitan areas of Madrid and Barcelona (Spain) have been mapped with reasonable computational costs. Although both cities have a similar global behaviour pattern, each has a different daily spatial accessibility distribution. Madrid appears to be more resilient than Barcelona. Conclusions With new technologies it is possible to overcome previous technical barriers, such as the lack of reliable information or calculating capacity. An ordinary computer has been used to obtain complete and detailed temporal profiles of the two traditional accessibility measurements. Thanks to these new measurements, we have a better understanding of accessibility. However, in order to express a dynamic phenomenon in static format, appropriate mapping schemes would have to be devised.

Dynamic Accessibility using Big Data: The Role of the Changing Conditions of Network Congestion and Destination Attractiveness

“…The works published using this type of data sources include particularly those from Toronto by Sweet et al (2014Sweet et al ( , 2015, who studied the impact of congestion on accessibility and its consequences on company localisation using historic speed data for motorways and major arterial networks provided by Inrix. Elsewhere, Moya-Gómez and García-Palomares (2015) applied data supplied by the TomTom navigation company -specifically the "Speed Profiles" product-to create dynamic maps that reveal the impact of congestion on daily accessibility in the metropolitan area of Madrid. "Speed Profiles" shows the speed on each section of the road network every five minutes.…”

Gap-accepteance parameters for roundabouts: a systematic review

“…However, the safety and operational performance of a roundabout is a product of its design [1,2]. At the planning stage, there are a variety of possible reasons and/ or goals for determining whether a roundabout is feasible, before expending the efforts required for further analysis and design [3]. When developing a more detailed design, in turn, the trade-offs of safety, capacity, cost, and so on must be identified and evaluated throughout the design process [4].…”

Multi‐temporal transport network models for accessibility studies

“…Recently, accessibility studies have explored the temporal variation, mostly based on public transport mode (Boisjoly & El‐Geneidy, ; Djurhuus, Sten Hansen, Aadahl, & Glümer, ; El‐Geneidy et al, ; Farber & Fu, ; Fayyaz, Liu, & Zhang, ; Kujala, Weckström, Mladenović, & Saramäki, ; Lee & Miller, ; Widener, Farber, Neutens, & Horner, ), a few on private mode (García‐Albertos, Picornell, Salas‐Olmedo, & Gutiérrez, in press; Moya‐Gómez & García‐Palomares, ; Páez, Moniruzzaman, Bourbonnais, & Morency, ), and some on both private and public modes (Benenson, Martens, Rofé, & Kwartler, ; Dewulf et al, ; Owen & Levinson, ; Salonen & Toivonen, ; Tenkanen, Saarsalmi, Järv, Salonen, & Toivonen, ). The transit emphasis may be related to data restrictions as well.…”