Public Transport Accessibility Map of access to General Practitioners Surgeries in Longbridge, Birmingham, UK

Abstract

Please click here to download the map associated with this article. This paper presents an accessibility map (centred on −1.977°, 52.399° with an area of 130.8 km2 at 1:50,000 scale) which is the culmination of one aspect of an accessibility planning exercise for a major redevelopment in the English West Midlands. ‘Accessibility Planning’ as defined by the UK Department for Transport (DfT) is a new duty in the local authority Local Transport Plan (LTP) process—although accessibility and location allocation models are established quantitative methods in geography. The incorporation of accessibility planning techniques in the LTP process has raised their profile in transport planning generally, where they are steadily gaining ground. Accessibility planning is not yet at the core of local transport planning, since the approach differs significantly from traditional methods in both techniques employed and in general approach to ‘the transport problem’. Much traditional transport planning work is scheme-led; a new link or service is mooted, and established numerical modeling tools used to predict demand for the facility. Rather than taking travel demands as a starting point, Accessibility Planning (in the LTP sense) considers the reasons why people need to travel in the first place—to more effectively plan service delivery around revealed needs or demands. Specifically, the broader needs of a population are reviewed; employment, education, healthcare, leisure—the whole range of opportunities and services. These destinations and the connecting transport networks are then analysed in a spatial context using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to show visually whether the population can access these key facilities. If this accessibility mapping exercise reveals that people cannot easily reach important destinations, the transport planner can use this evidence to argue for possible interventions—and use accessibility maps and models to test potential measures. Accessibility Planning also differs from the ‘classic’ approach in that non-transport measures are considered too, with transport planners informing decisions by other professionals on location and delivery of services.