UrbanAccess: Generalized Methodology for Measuring Regional Accessibility with an Integrated Pedestrian and Transit Network

Abstract

Measures of accessibility have long been an important metric in regional transportation planning and modeling. However, new methods are needed to provide computationally efficient, multiscale, free, transparent, and customizable tools that harness open and disparate sources of transportation network data at fine spatial resolution over large geographic extents. This research presents a new open source tool, UrbanAccess, which uses a generalized and scalable methodology to measure transit accessibility with a multimodal network comprising both pedestrian and operational schedule transit networks at a fine spatial scale over large metropolitan extents. A typical use for this tool is illustrated in a case study that characterizes regional transit accessibility in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.