The Future of Urban Accessibility: The Role of AI

Using the City of Corvallis, Oregon, a small to medium sized American city, as a test-bed, this paper examines the City’s urban growth in relation to urban accessibility. This relationship is explored in an anatomic spatial-temporal fashion, taking account of: the number and size of developed land use parcels over time; urban accessibility from residential to non-residential land use areas; and the statistical relationships between urban form and urban accessibility. This investigation of land use is structured around use-classification and examined within a range of dimensional and demographic measurements over 5-year time periods from 1853 to 2014; concurrently, urban accessibility is measured by the least-cost path distance as calculated through the OD cost matrix analysis in GIS. The results indicate that the city grew spatially at different rates and its urban accessibility experienced both ups and downs over time. The city’s population growth corresponded closely with urban growth and its decreasing population density negatively impacted on the city’s urban accessibility to commerce, industry, and office for most time periods. Significantly, while the urban density increased steadily after 1950s concurrent with an increase in urban sprawl, in contrast to previous studies on the metropolitan condition, the urban density had no evident impact on urban accessibility in Corvallis. Instead, increasing the land-use mix was a more effective and feasible approach to reduce urban travel path distance and enhance accessibility than increasing population density or urban development density. Accordingly, this research provides evidence-based policy recommendations for planning sustainable urban mobility and urban form in small to medium-sized cities.

This article reviewed the urban vehicle access control policies derived from disparate spatiotemporal dimensions that aim to eliminate the negative externalities of traffic caused by urbanization. Urban access regulations are important tools often required to achieve the sustainable mobility vision of cities. Employing a systematic literature review methodology, this review summarized and analyzed various urban access control policies to enlighten policymakers and future scientific research. The results indicate that combinations of multiple-dimensional restriction policies (including inter-policy and intra-policy) have more significant effects than implementing a single policy. Classified according to their objectives, control policies were discussed in terms of their benefits and limitations. The authors are inspired to propose and describe five paradoxes of urban access control policies.

GIScience 2016 Short Paper Proceedings Can we use OpenStreetMap POIs for the Evaluation of Urban Accessibility? S. Steiniger 1 , M.E. Poorazizi 2 , D.R. Scott 1 , C. Fuentes 1 , R. Crespo 3 CEDEUS & Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile A, Avda. Vicuna Mackenna 4860, Macul - Santiago - Chile Email: ssteiniger@uc.cl University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada Email: mepooraz@ucalgary.ca Universidad Bernardo O’Higgins, Avenida Viel 1497 Ruta 5 Sur - Santiago, Chile Email: ricardo.crespo@ubo.cl Abstract High urban accessibility, measured in terms of easy and fast to reach public and private services, such as schools, parks and shops, is considered an important indicator for quality of life. We developed a web-based platform to measure urban accessibility for transportation planning. Several cities that we aim to study are in Chile where data on urban services is scarce. We evaluated if OpenStreetMap (OSM) can be used as a source of Points of Interest (POI) to evaluate urban accessibility. Based on a field survey in Santiago de Chile, we found that completeness of the OSM POI database is geographical very diverse (7% - 73%) and therefore accessibility scores change significantly. However, scores in some areas did not change much when POIs were added to the OSM database. Given the lack of alternative data sources we recommend using OSM, but suggest evaluating POI completeness in areas with average and low accessibility scores. 1. Urban Accessibility Urban accessibility measures how easy or difficult it is to visit places of one’s day-to-day activities by measuring travel time. As daily activities are considered things such as going to work or school, visiting the library or a park, doing (grocery) shopping, going out to a restaurant, or visiting a movie theatre. Traditionally, transportation planning has focused on measuring accessibility as accessibility to work places, as work-related trips generate high travel demand. Following newer but also classic accessibility measurement theory and practice (e.g., Talen and Anselin 1998; Geurs and van Wee 2004), we developed a web-based platform that measures urban accessibility by counting activity opportunities within a certain travel time – or “travel-shed”. The platform should later be used to evaluate how accessibility changes when investments into urban infrastructure or changes to public transit schedules are made. To evaluate urban accessibility based on activity opportunities and with respect to different modes of travel (e.g. walking, biking, public transit) different data sources are needed: (a) activity opportunities in form of Point of Interest (POI) data, (b) road and pedestrian path network information, and (c) bus and subway/LRT schedules if accessibility with public transit is of interest. In this paper we aim to evaluate how completeness of the (OpenStreetMap) POI database affects calculated walkability scores. 2. Why OpenStreetMap as a Data Source Our first platform prototype was implemented to measure accessibility in Calgary, Canada (Steiniger et al. 2013). For this prototype we used road network data from OpenStreetMap and Points of Interest (POI) were received from MapQuest’s proprietary online database.

ObjectivesExamine the impact of two generic—urban–rural experimental profile (UREP) and urban accessibility (UA)—and one purposely built—geographic classification for health (GCH)—rurality classification systems on the identification of rural–urban health disparities in...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to provide insights for developing effective cultourism strategies through an empirical analysis of public perceptions toward the TIMF, one of Asia’s leading cultural contents. Methods Data were collected using major keywords, and text preprocessing and morphological analysis were conducted to enhance reliability and validity. Subsequently, the top 100 words were extracted and analyzed through frequency analysis. In addition, network analysis, centrality analysis, and CONCOR analysis were performed. Results A total of 8,358 noun-type words were extracted, with “Contemporary Music Festival,” “Tongyeong City,” “Local Culture,” “Yun Isang,” “Artist,” “Concert Hall,” “Famous Restaurant,” and “Side Events” showing high frequencies. The CONCOR analysis revealed that public perceptions were structured into six clusters: “Tourism Infrastructure and Cultural Industry”, “Urban Network and Accessibility”, “Policy/Funding Structure and Governance”, “Local Participation and Cultural Experience”, “International Cultural Exchange and Professionalism”, and “Cultural Content and Viewing Experience”. Conclusion TIMF can serve as a sustainable cultural tourism strategy when its artistic quality and professionalism are organically linked with tourism infrastructure, urban accessibility, governance among the government, local authorities, and the private sector, local community–based cultural experiences, international cultural exchanges of a global standard, and audience experiences.

Urban poverty areas (UPA’s) include diverse types of urban areas that have variety in their urban and architectural characteristics; however, all UPAs suffer from low quality of urban life. Moreover, the remote and marginalized sites of these areas are a common significant defect. The dwellers in these areas face the problem of poor accessibility to other parts of the city and sometimes inside the UPA itself, due to natural and artificial barriers such as the topography, the water bodies, the absence of public transportation and in most cases due to the inadequate urban characteristics of the street networks and the transit infrastructure. The argument of this study is that urban accessibility has a key role in the enhancement of the quality of urban life in the case of UPAs. Urban accessibility acts as a supplementary approach alongside other common approaches to urban upgrading in UPAs. The methodology adopted in this research relies on an analytical comparative review of actual UPAs from Brazil and Egypt from an urban accessibility perspective, which showed the positive impact of providing a good urban accessibility on the quality of urban life. The results represent lessons from practice that showed how a good urban accessibility in a UPA can contribute to a more sustainable urban community. Furthermore, it was clear that urban accessibility needs to be integrated with the other common approaches of urban upgrading as it acts as a supplementary approach. The study also clarified the pivotal role of using public transportation systems and pedestrian networks as urban solutions in the achievement of a good urban accessibility.

A network-based analysis of the impact of structural damage on urban accessibility following a disaster: the case of the seismically damaged Port Au Prince and Carrefour urban road networks

SubSaharan Africa has experienced rapid market economy development in urban areas and in terms of road network systems connecting urban and rural areas. As the access to urban areas improves, the influence of economic development may alter local norms regarding the conservation of communal lands in rural areas. This study investigates how access from rural to urban areas affects individual and social norms regarding communal land conservation. We used interview data from 110 village leaders and 660 farmers' community group leaders in northern Ethiopia. Individual moral norms were estimated based on the respondents' willingness to participate in communal tree planting on communal lands as a means of halting and reversing land degradation. Social norms were estimated based on the proportion of exclosure in communal areas and the number of days a community member works without pay for communal land conservation. The relationships between the norms and urban access were investigated using probit and tobit regression models. The results reveal that access to urban areas positively affects the establishment of individual and social norms, suggesting that access to urban areas contributes to communal land conservation by facilitating intervention in rural areas, thus improving norms for natural resource management.

Urban planning has a crucial role in helping cities meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and robust datasets to assess mobility accessibility are central to smart urban planning. These datasets provide the information necessary to perform detailed analyses that help develop targeted urban interventions that increase accessibility in cities as related to the emerging vision of the 15 Minute City. This study discusses the need for such data by performing a comparative urban accessibility analysis of two university campuses and their surrounding urban areas, here defined as the Stanford District, located in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States, and Distrito Tec in Monterrey, Mexico. The open-source tool Urban Mobility Accessibility Computer (UrMoAC) is used to assess accessibility measures in each district using available data. UrMoAC calculates distances and average travel times from block groups to major destinations using different transport modes considering the morphology of the city, which makes this study transferable and scalable. The results show that both areas have medium levels of accessibility if cycling is used as the primary mode of transportation. Hence, improving the safety and quality of cycling in both cities emerges as one of the main recommendations from the research. Finally, the results obtained can be used to generate public policies that address the specific needs of each community’s urban region based on their accessibility performance.

Abstract. Urban accessibility is a crucial factor in achieving inclusive and sustainable development, as emphasized by Goal 11 of the UN 2030 Agenda. This paper presents the early outcomes of the PRIN 2022 research project “ACROSS: A static and dynamic database for historic urban contexts accessibility”, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research. The ACROSS project explores innovative methodologies for assessing and enhancing accessibility within historic urban centers, focusing on the integration of Geomatics and data-driven approaches. Specifically, it aims to generate both static and dynamic databases that support inclusive urban planning by identifying permanent and temporary physical barriers. The research involves three academic institutions: the University of Brescia, Politecnico di Milano, and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, each contributing to different aspects of the project. Central to the methodology is the use of Handheld Mobile Laser Scanners (HMLS) for acquiring dense and accurate 3D point clouds of Mantua’s historic core. Data collection strategies were optimized for minimal urban disturbance, and the acquired datasets underwent classification and feature extraction to identify accessibility-related elements such as sidewalks, pole-like structures, trash cans, and covered areas. A semi-automated workflow was developed to extract geometric parameters and convert them into GIS-ready layers. These layers were integrated with municipal and open-source datasets into a comprehensive GIS platform, supporting multi-criteria analysis and accessible path planning. Preliminary results confirm the suitability of HMLS for urban surveys and highlight the importance of integrating manual refinement with algorithmic processing to handle class-specific segmentation. The findings reinforce the value of Geomatics in supporting inclusive urban planning, offering a replicable framework for other historic cities seeking to enhance accessibility through digital and spatial analysis. Future developments will expand the GIS database and explore AI-based solutions for dynamic accessibility management.

Na atualidade, a mobilidade urbana configura um dos principais desafios das grandes e médias cidades brasileiras, haja vista os sinais de insustentabilidade que apresenta em relação a muitos aspectos que a envolve. Nas referidas cidades, onde a concentração de riqueza, terra e poder contrastam com a distribuição desigual da renda, a reprodução de iniquidades e os problemas cotidianos resultantes da acelerada urbanização afetam a mobilidade e acessibilidade urbanas. No tocante à acessibilidade urbana, a renda e a valorização de determinados espaços, aliadas a maiores investimentos em infraestrutura, fazem com que as áreas centrais das cidades apresentem melhores condições que as áreas periféricas. Diante do exposto, este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar as condições de acessibilidade urbana na cidade de Natal/RN e verificar em que medida o acesso a serviços e equipamentos urbanos é facilitado ou dificultado em virtude da localização da população e do seu poder aquisitivo. Adotou-se, como procedimentos metodológicos, a pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, bem como aferição e análise de alguns dos indicadores de sustentabilidade relacionados à acessibilidade urbana, que compõem o Índice de Mobilidade Urbana Sustentável (IMUS).

Urbanization has been a flourishing process in a wide range of developing countries. The planning and construction of public service facilities is a crucial component of this process. Existing planning methods of public service facilities focused on macroscopic indicators like population and GDP. In this way, accessibility and transportation conditions were neglected. Four typical counties in China were selected as samples where travel surveys and questionnaire surveys on public service facilities were conducted. Taking education and medical care as representative public service facilities, this study used geographic information processing to connect the locations of public service facilities at all levels with the urban land accessibility. Then, analysis of variance was used to obtain correlations between the level of public service facilities and the urban land accessibility. The results showed that the urban land accessibility of locations of public service facilities follows a normal distribution. Categories of facilities showed significant difference on urban land accessibility. Therefore, intervals of urban land accessibility of locations of public service facilities within one standard deviation from the mean were constructed by category. These intervals built a connection between transportation conditions with locations of public service facilities. Corresponding relation of carbon emission of facility-related trips and urban land accessibility was established as an example of an application. Carbon emissions caused by facility-related trips can be reduced by locating facilities at locations with appropriate urban land accessibility.

After many struggles from disability rights and independent-living advocates, urban accessibility has gradually become a concern for many urban planners across post-industrial countries. In this paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork studies in Barcelona working with urban accessibility professionals and activists, we argue for the importance of the ‘documentation interfaces’ created in their struggles: that is, the relational processes to collaboratively build multi-media accounts in a diversity of formats seeking to enforce different translations of bodily needs into specific urban accessibility arrangements. In discussion with the asymmetries that the ongoing expertization of accessibility might be opening up, we would like to foreground these apparently irrelevant practices as an interesting site to reflect on how urban accessibility struggles might allow us to rethink the project of technical democracy and its applications to urban issues. Two cases are analyzed: (1) the creation of Streets for All, a platform to contest and to sensitize technicians and citizens alike of the problems of ‘shared streets’ for the blind and partially sighted led by the Catalan Association for the Blind; and (2) the organization of the Tinkerthon, a DIY and open-source hardware workshop boosted by En torno a la silla to facilitate the creation of a network of tinkerers seeking to self-manage accessibility infrastructures. These cases not only bring to the fore different takes on the democratization of the relations between technical professionals and disability rights advocates, but also offer different approaches to the politics of universals in the design of urban accessibility arrangements.

Urban crime is unplanned change from urban development processes. Understanding of urban crime is necessary for crime prevention and increase urban living quality. The geographical approach in urban crime analysis can analyze crime pattern using a geographic information system, also investigate a correlation between crime and environmental condition. This research is conducted to analyze the relationships between urban crime and urban accessibility in Sumur Bandung as the region with the highest crime in Bandung City. Urban crime pattern can be determined using geographic information systems through kernel density estimation, whereas urban accessibility is obtained via network indices methods. The correlation between urban crime pattern and urban accessibility is determined from statistical tests. The results show there is a significant positive relationship between urban crime and urban accessibility in Sumur Bandung Sub-District. Urban crime pattern is concentrated in Braga and Babakan Ciamis. Crime will increase in a more accessible area, thus crime prevention effort through physical access controlling regulation in the urban region.

Parks, as a major infrastructure that provide public service for urban residents, play a vital role in promoting urban livability and public health. Under the framework of spatial equity, more sophisticated accessibility methods were used on measuring urban park accessibility such as multi-mode 2SFCA. However, the accessibility of residential areas near parks was seriously underestimated by using the multi-mode 2SFCA method. Thus, this study aimed to propose an improved multi-mode 2SFCA method to measure urban park accessibility with a more appropriate approach, by taking residential areas of Tianjin central city as the spatial unit. The results indicate that all residential areas can obtain urban park accessibility, but the spatial distribution of urban park accessibility is heterogeneous. The numerical value of urban park accessibility decreases as the travel time from residential areas to urban parks increases; it is shown that the proposed method can provide a more realistic evaluation compared to the traditional multi-mode 2SFCA method. This study provides a comprehensive and realistic insight into acquainting with urban park accessibility and helps urban planners formulate effective policies and strategies to ease spatial imbalance.