Access envelopes: a new accessibility mapping technique for transport and settlement planning

Abstract

The article describes the application of a GIS-based accessibility measurement \ntechnique suited to assessing the impact of both transport and spatial development \nstrategies on the location-specific affordability of job access for poor households. \nThe access envelope methodology extends existing accessibility measures by: \nexplicitly accounting for public transport service patterns; including transport costs \nas a dimension of accessibility; and deriving a single intuitive measure of access \nreflecting the potential income earnable by a person living in a certain location, after \npaying for transport. Several case studies from the City of Tshwane are presented, \nillustrating its use for assessing spatial integration and transport initiatives. The cases \ndemonstrate how Tshwane’s emerging Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system selectively \nenhances accessibility to jobs, although its marginal accessibility benefit is reduced \nby the part-duplication of existing rail lines to core employment areas. While the \nBRT improves the net earning potential of low-income workers in certain areas, its \nultimate benefits will significantly depend on its achievement of network effects – \nespecially via the reduction of first/last-kilometer trip costs – and its ability to leverage \nhigher density development within walking distance of the route. Accordingly, results \nobtained with the access-envelopes method carry significant implications for current \ntransport planning in the main metro cities.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 7 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.