Measuring Accessibility for People with a Disability

Richard L. Church · James R. Marston

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Urban Transport and Accessibility Transportation Planning and Optimization Disability Rights and Representation

Abstract

This paper discusses some of the inherent problems associated with measuring accessibility for people on a landscape of surfaces, barriers, and travel modes. Along with this discussion we propose a new perspective for measuring accessibility with a focus on people with differing abilities. Even though our focus is on people with a physical disability, such an approach can be easily extended and is able to be generalized to other needs and differences. Traditional measurements of accessibility are flawed, as they fail to directly account for mobility and physical differences among people. They ignore structural barriers and individual mobility limitations that affect travel time, effort, and even successful completion. To make sense of this dilemma, we propose an accessibility measurement framework that includes measures of absolute access, gross access, closest assignment access, single and multiple activity access, probabilistic choice access, and relative access. Most of these measures of access have been proposed by others, but our framework attempts to codify an approach that helps to overcome weaknesses in using only the absolute access measurement currently used in ADA compliance. Such measures can be used to map accessibility as well as to help select the mitigation or renovation projects that yield the greatest increase in accessibility for people with disabilities. We argue that for many urban and building design problems providing absolute access for people with physical disabilities should be accompanied by the use of a relative access measurement, so that removing barriers can be done in the order that provides the greatest improvement in access for a given level of expenditure.

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References

1959How Accessibility Shapes Land Use 1970WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE IN REGIONAL SCIENCE?1964Optimum Locations of Switching Centers and the Absolute Centers and Medians of a Graph 1997Measuring Accessibility: An Exploration of Issues and Alternatives 1998Space‐Time and Integral Measures of Individual Accessibility: A Comparative Analysis Using a Point‐based Framework 1970Central Facilities Location 1998Assessing Spatial Equity: An Evaluation of Measures of Accessibility to Public Playgrounds 1971The concept of accessibility: A search for an operational form

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