Cumulative versus Gravity-based Accessibility Measures: Which One to Use?
This paper compares two popular approaches to calculate access to jobs by public transport: gravity and cumulative opportunities. Using data on commute patterns and public transport schedules from Montreal, Canada, we find cumulative opportunities-based measures estimated at the mean transit commute...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Findings Press
2022-02-01
|
| Series: | Findings |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.32444 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | This paper compares two popular approaches to calculate access to jobs by public transport: gravity and cumulative opportunities. Using data on commute patterns and public transport schedules from Montreal, Canada, we find cumulative opportunities-based measures estimated at the mean transit commute time and gravity-based measures generated through various decay functions are highly correlated -- all above 0.9. This finding holds even when replicating the analysis for low- and non-low-wage jobs available in the same metropolitan region. These findings strongly suggest that easy-to-communicate and -operationalize cumulative opportunities accessibility constructs measured at the mean commute time perform similarly to more theoretically-sound gravity-based measures. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2652-8800 |