access to destinations

Applications of Access

| David Levinson

Now available for download: Applications of Access.

Applications of Access edited by David Levinson and Alireza Ermagun

About

Our open access book Applications of Access, edited by David Levinson and Alireza Ermagun has launched!

Applications of Access was inspired by our belief that planning should reach beyond mobility and incorporate all intricacies of reaching your destination. We set out to publish a book examining topics such as (1) Equity and social justice, (2) Resilience and crisis, (3) Active transport, (4) Public transport, (5) Auto travel, (6) System performance, and (7) Project evaluation.

But this book is not intended to simply be a “how to” manual, but rather to inspire researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to spark a broader array of research and practice in the nexus of transport access.  
This was a labor of love that included the work of many of our colleagues and thought leaders in the transport community. We are thrilled to finally be able to share our work with you, and we hope to embolden our greater transport community to examine access through the many lenses that impact our daily commutes and quality of life.

Table of Contents

1 An Introduction to Applications of Access
Alireza Ermagun and David Levinson 15

2 Fostering Social Equity and Inclusion
Pâmmela Santos and Geneviève Boisjoly 23

3 Justice, Exclusion, and Equity: An Analysis of 48 US Metropolitan Areas
Chelsey Palmateer and David Levinson 45

4 Disparity of Access: Variations in Transit Service by Race, Ethnicity, Income, and Auto Availability
Elisa Borowski, Alireza Ermagun, and David Levinson 69

5 Access During COVID
James DeWeese, Kevin Manaugh, and Ahmed El-Geneidy 87

6 Access to Shelters
Mahyar Ghorbanzadeh, Kyusik Kim, Eren Erman Ozguven, and Mark Horner 105

7 Access and Centrality-Based Estimation of Urban Pedestrian Activity
Brendan Murphy, Andrew Owen, and David Levinson 117

8 Which Station? Access Trips and Bikeshare Route and Station Choice
Jessica Schoner and David Levinson 133

9 Cargo Bikesharing as a Last-mile Connector
David Duran-Rodas, Aaron Nichols, Benjamin Büttner 149

10 Spatio-temporal Transit Access to Food Stores
Xiaohuan Zeng, Ying Song, and Na Chen 165

11 Multi-destination Access
Andrew Guthrie and Yingling Fan 193

12 Non-work Vehicle Trip Generation from Multi- week In-vehicle GPS Data
Arthur Huang and David Levinson 217

13 Job Access and Spatial Equity of a Toll Road
I Gusti Ayu Andani, Lissy La Paix, Shanty Rachmat, Ibnu Syabri, and Karst Geurs 239

14 Access and Transit System Performance
Alireza Ermagun and David Levinson 261

15 Intraurban Access and Agglomeration
Michael Iacono, Jason Cao, Mengying Cui, and David Levinson 277

16 Transit Access Performance Across Chicago
Fatemeh Janatabadi, Nazanin Tajik, and Alireza Ermagun 291

17 Interactive Access for Integrated Planning
Anson Stewart and Andrew Byrd 307

18 The Role of Transit Service Area Definition for Access-based Evaluation
Chelsey Palmateer, Alireza Ermagun, Andrew Owen, and David Levinson 327

19 Access-based Evaluation of Transit-Oriented Developments
Chelsey Palmateer, Andrew Owen, and Alireza Ermagun 347

20 Physical and Virtual Access
Tanhua Jin, Long Cheng, and Frank Witlox 363

Editors and Contributors 377

Bibliography 387

FEATURES

  • 424 Pages
  • Publisher: Network Design Lab

DOWNLOAD

The End of Traffic and the Future of Access | Spontaneous Access: Reflexions on Designing Cities and Transport | Elements of Access: Transport Planning for Engineers, Transport Engineering for Planners | A Political Economy of Access | The 30-Minute City: Designing for Access | Transport Access Manual | Applications of Access

Transportist: December 2020

| David Levinson

Welcome to the latest issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers. As always you can follow along at the  transportist.org or on Twitter. 

Books:

Transport Access Manual: A Guide for Measuring Connection between People and Places 

Now available: Transport Access Manual: A Guide for Measuring Connection between People and Places by The Committee of the Transport Access Manual.   (Download PDF) (Paper)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Transport Access Manual cover
Transport Access Manual: A Guide for Measuring Connection between People and Places by The Committee for the Transport Access Manual.   (Download PDF) (Paper)

This Manual is a guide for quantifying and evaluating access for anybody interested in truly understanding how to measure the performance of transport and land use configurations. It contains enough to help transport and planning professionals achieve a more comprehensive look at their city or region than traditional transport analysis allows. It provides a point of entry for interested members of the public as well as practitioners by being organized in a logical and straightforward way.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. CONCEPTS

  1. Access and Mobility: Clearing Up the Confusion
  2. Fundamental Model of Access
  3. Access, Movement, and Place
  4. Access and Equity
  5. Strategies for Access
  6. Roadmap for Using this Manual

2. USES

  1. Baseline Trend Analysis
  2. Performance Monitoring
  3. Performance Standards
  4. Goals
  5. Transport Project Evaluation
  6. Land Use Change Evaluation
  7. Metrics for Disadvantaged Populations
  8. Transport Equity Analysis
  9. Financial Costs of Access
  10. Predictor of Travel Behavior

3. MEASURES

  1. Primal Measures: Opportunity-Denominated Access
  2. Dual Measures: Time-Denominated Access

4. CALCULATIONS

  1. Identify Objectives
  2. Stratify Analysis
  3. Determine Travel Costs
  4. Determine Opportunities at Destinations
  5. Accumulate Opportunities Reachable from Origins
  6. Assess Competitive Access
  7. Calculate Dual Access
  8. Summarize Measures
  9. Visualize Results

5. BIASES

  1. Edge Effects
  2. Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP)
  3. Modifiable Temporal Unit Problem (MTUP)
  4. Starting Point Effects
  5. Starting Time Effects

6. DATA

  1. People
  2. Places
  3. Movement
  4. Time
  5. Financial

7. FUTURES

  1. New and Emerging Travel Modes
  2. Equity of Future Technologies
  3. Conclusions

APPENDICES

A. CONSEQUENCES

  1. TransportModeling
  2. EconomicGeographyModeling
  3. Location of Activities and Investments
  4. Real Estate Prices
  5. Spatial Mechanisms
  6. Productivity: the Agglomeration Effect
  7. Wages
  8. Employment Rates
  9. Effects on Gross Domestic Product

B. PLANNING

  1. Benefits of Access Planning
  2. Audience for Access Metrics
  3. Reflective of Planning Goals
  4. Improving the Adoption of Access Tools

C. SELECTION

  1. Components
  2. Classification and Assessment
  3. Selection of Measures

D. TOOLS

  1. Tools to Quantify and Visualize Access
  2. Access-Focused Scenario Planning Software

E. SAMPLE R SCRIPT FOR DUAL ACCESS CALCULATION

F. MANAGING

  1. Project Team and Stakeholders
  2. Budget and Resources
  3. Software Installations and Subscriptions

G. SAMPLE RFP FOR ACCESSIBILITY PLATFORM

H. FURTHER READING

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FEATURES

  • 230 pages.
  • Color Images.
  • ISBN: 9781715886431
  • Publisher: Network Design Lab

PURCHASE

Classic Transportist Posts

  • I wrote this in 2014 PHASING IN ROAD PRICING ONE ELECTRIC VEHICLE AT A TIME … this is now salient because Australian states are about to implement this (South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales). 
    • General view: Good in theory, depends in practice on the rates and fuel taxes. But given nearly 100% of new cars will be EVs sooner than most people think, and they don’t pay fuel taxes, and they do use roads, and right now their owners have above average incomes, it seems a perfect time to get road pricing implemented without the huge political fight that would come if it is done too late. Of course this might be a disincentive to purchase EVs, but it’s a relatively small charge now, and new EV purchases can be incentivized separately, if that were important. (But why EVs not E-Bikes etc.) 
    • Would this have happened had I not moved to Australia? We will never know. 
  • I wrote this in 2008 MEMO TO THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES ON TRANSPORTATION POLICY
    • These recommendations are still mostly pretty good — which is depressing, as it indicates we have made very little progress in domain of transport. Maybe the next President will take it up.

Transportist Posts

Findings

  • Jabbari, Parastoo, and Don MacKenzie. 2020. “Ride Sharing Attitudes Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States.” Findings, November. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.17991.
  • Wu, Xinyu, Frank Douma, Jason Cao, and Erika Shepard. 2020. “Preparing Transit in the Advent of Automated Vehicles: A Focus-Group Study in the Twin Cities.” Findings, November. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.17872.
  • Jamal, Shaila, and Antonio Paez. 2020. “Changes in Trip-Making Frequency by Mode during COVID-19.” Findings, November. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.17977.
  • Tokey, Ahmad Ilderim. 2020. “Change of Bike-Share Usage in Five Cities of United States during COVID-19.” Findings, November. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.17851.
  • Du, Jianhe, and Hesham A. Rakha. 2020. “COVID-19 Impact on Ride-Hailing: The Chicago Case Study.” Findings, October. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.17838.

Talks 

  • I spoke at the Festival of Urbanism on November 18. Mobility and Housing Futures about the “New New Normal: Mobility and Activity in the ‘After Times’”. A narrated slide-deck of the talk is available on YouTube.
  • I will be speaking at Australia Build conference on the Thirty-Minute City. December 10, 14:40.
  • I will be speaking at the NeurIPS conference on End of Traffic and Future of Access. December 11, 19:15 AEDT.

Conferences

News & Opinion

Books

Transport Access Manual: A Guide for Measuring Connection between People and Places

Transport Access Manual cover
| David Levinson

Now available: Transport Access Manual: A Guide for Measuring Connection between People and Places by The Committee of the Transport Access Manual.   (Download PDF) (Paper)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Transport Access Manual cover
Transport Access Manual (Download PDF) (Paper)

This Manual is a guide for quantifying and evaluating access for anybody interested in truly understanding how to measure the performance of transport and land use configurations. It contains enough to help transport and planning professionals achieve a more comprehensive look at their city or region than traditional transport analysis allows. It provides a point of entry for interested members of the public as well as practitioners by being organized in a logical and straightforward way.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1. CONCEPTS

  1. Access and Mobility: Clearing Up the Confusion
  2. Fundamental Model of Access
  3. Access, Movement, and Place
  4. Access and Equity
  5. Strategies for Access
  6. Roadmap for Using this Manual

2. USES

  1. Baseline Trend Analysis
  2. Performance Monitoring
  3. Performance Standards
  4. Goals
  5. Transport Project Evaluation
  6. Land Use Change Evaluation
  7. Metrics for Disadvantaged Populations
  8. Transport Equity Analysis
  9. Financial Costs of Access
  10. Predictor of Travel Behavior

3. MEASURES

  1. Primal Measures: Opportunity-Denominated Access
  2. Dual Measures: Time-Denominated Access

4. CALCULATIONS

  1. Identify Objectives
  2. Stratify Analysis
  3. Determine Travel Costs
  4. Determine Opportunities at Destinations
  5. Accumulate Opportunities Reachable from Origins
  6. Assess Competitive Access
  7. Calculate Dual Access
  8. Summarize Measures
  9. Visualize Results

5. BIASES

  1. Edge Effects
  2. Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP)
  3. Modifiable Temporal Unit Problem (MTUP)
  4. Starting Point Effects
  5. Starting Time Effects

6. DATA

  1. People
  2. Places
  3. Movement
  4. Time
  5. Financial

7. FUTURES

  1. New and Emerging Travel Modes
  2. Equity of Future Technologies
  3. Conclusions

APPENDICES

A. CONSEQUENCES

  1. TransportModeling
  2. EconomicGeographyModeling
  3. Location of Activities and Investments
  4. Real Estate Prices
  5. Spatial Mechanisms
  6. Productivity: the Agglomeration Effect
  7. Wages
  8. Employment Rates
  9. Effects on Gross Domestic Product

B. PLANNING

  1. Benefits of Access Planning
  2. Audience for Access Metrics
  3. Reflective of Planning Goals
  4. Improving the Adoption of Access Tools

C. SELECTION

  1. Components
  2. Classification and Assessment
  3. Selection of Measures

D. TOOLS

  1. Tools to Quantify and Visualize Access
  2. Access-Focused Scenario Planning Software

E. SAMPLE R SCRIPT FOR DUAL ACCESS CALCULATION

F. MANAGING

  1. Project Team and Stakeholders
  2. Budget and Resources
  3. Software Installations and Subscriptions

G. SAMPLE RFP FOR ACCESSIBILITY PLATFORM

H. FURTHER READING

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FEATURES

  • 230 pages.
  • Color Images.
  • ISBN: 9781715886431
  • Publisher: Network Design Lab

PURCHASE

Multi-Activity Access: How Activity Choice Affects Opportunity

| David Levinson

Recently published:

It is commonly seen that accessibility is measured considering only one opportunity or activity type or purpose of interest, e.g., jobs. The value of a location, and thus the overall access, however, depends on the ability to reach many different types of opportunities. This paper clarifies the concept of multi-activity accessibility, which combines multiple types of opportunities into a single aggregated access measure, and aims to find more comprehensive answers for the questions: what is being accessed, by what extent, and how it varies by employment status and by gender. The Minneapolis – St. Paul metropolitan region is selected for the measurement of multi-activity accessibility, using both primal and dual measures of cumulative access, for auto and transit. It is hypothesized that workers and non-workers, and males and females have different accessibility profiles. This research demonstrates its practicality at the scale of a metropolitan area, and highlights the differences in access for workers and non-workers, and men and women, because of differences in their activity participation.

multi-access-method-frame
Multi-Activity Accessibility Framework

 

Moving Forward Framework (take 2)

| David Levinson

The previous version of this post was eaten by WordPress.

Moving Forward Framework: For the People
Moving Forward Framework: For the People

A reader writes: “The U.S. House [Transportation and Infrastructure Committee] came out with its pre-election transportation policy: The Moving Forward Framework, and access measures made it into what is otherwise a high-level policy document (with no hint about how they plan to pay for their wishlists.)”

On Access to Jobs:

It’s infrastructure investment that is smarter, safer, and made to last – with a framework that:

…

  • Ensures a transportation system that is green, affordable, reliable, efficient and provides access to jobs

and

Modernizes Project Planning – Requires States and MPOs to prioritize transportation access and to consider during the planning process all system users, job access, connections to housing, and creation of transportation options in underserved communities.

On Fix-It-First

Revamps Existing Formula Programs

Amends core highway formula programs to prioritize investments and improve program implementation:

Fix it First – Prioritizes maintaining and improving existing infrastructure and bringing it up to a state of good repair, including roads, bridges, tunnels, and ferry systems.

On Road Pricing

Tackles Congestion Equitably – Institutes tighter standards around tolling and congestion pricing.

Tests the Viability of New Transportation User Fees

Transforms revenue collection and distribution by authorizing a multi-year national pilot program to test revenue collection to ensure the future viability and equity of surface transportation user fees, including a vehicle-miles travelled fee.

 

It’s almost as if it were written by a reader of this blog.

Access to Destinations Data

| David Levinson

Many years ago, we completed a project called Access to Destinations. The data from the project has been sitting on my hard drive for many years. I am happy that some of it is now preserved for posterity and open science by the University of Minnesota Data Conservancy. See:

 

Unfortunately, due to small methodological changes, these data are not directly comparable with more recent outputs, and the 1995 – 2005 data are really not directly comparable with the 2010 data either. It nevertheless might be interesting for selected applications.

Map Monday: Isochrones and the Thirty-Minute City | WalkSydney

| David Levinson

I wrote a thing for WalkSydney: Map Monday: Isochrones and the Thirty-Minute City

Travel Time Platform is a website that lets users draw Isochrones, areas which can be reached in a given amount of time (Iso from the Greek for same, chronos for time). I have used it to draw a time radius. Here we show a 30 minute walking time from the Seymour Centre (near the WalkSydney world headquarters, but you can choose anywhere.)

The 30 minute city is a concept about accessibility, can the important places travelers want to go be reached in a given time. The idea that 70% of the people can reach daily activities within 30 minutes of walk, bike, or transit is embedded in the most recent Metropolis of Three Cities plan of the Greater Sydney Commission.

…

Isochrone by car. A car will get you farther than walking, biking, or transit in 30 minutes.
Isochrone by car. A car will get you farther than walking, biking, or transit in 30 minutes.

 

Access Across America: Auto 2016

| David Levinson

My peeps back in Minnesota released Access Across America: Auto 2016. They write:

This study estimates the accessibility to jobs by auto for each of the 11 million U.S. census blocks and analyzes these data in the 50 largest (by population) metropolitan areas.

Travel times are calculated using a detailed road network and speed data that reflect typical conditions for an 8 a.m. Wednesday morning departure. Additionally, the accessibility results for 8 a.m. are compared with accessibility results for 4 a.m. to estimate the impact of road and highway congestion on job accessibility.

Rankings are determined by a weighted average of accessibility, with a higher weight given to closer, easier-to-access jobs. Jobs reachable within 10 minutes are weighted most heavily, and jobs are given decreasing weights as travel time increases up to 60 minutes.

The report presents detailed accessibility and congestion impact values for each metropolitan area as well as block-level maps that illustrate the spatial patterns of accessibility within each area. It also includes a census tract-level map that shows accessibility patterns at a national scale.

Minnesota Compass

| David Levinson

Minnesota Compass collects social indicators to measure changes over time in Minnesota across a variety of topics, including transportation, education, economy and workforce.  Of interest to Transportationist readers are transportation indicators. These include congestion, pavement condition, transportation expenses, and accessibility, from the Accessibility Observatory. Check it out if you are interested in performance and trend tracking.