Meta-accessibility: integrating multiple dimensions of commuting and accessibility

This project has received funding from the Polish National Science Centre POLONEZ 1 program, grant no. 2015/19/P/HS4/04067, with funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 665778.

Sustainable places must afford people equitable levels of accessibility to myriad essential opportunities. People’s accessibility to non-work and alternative-work opportunities is a critical component of quality-of-life. How cities successfully balance diverse socioeconomics groups’ accessibility needs and wants depends on where homes, jobs, and other activities are located and how people commute between them. Failing to account for people’s non-work and alternative-work accessibility disenfranchises people trapped in poverty seeking upward mobility, as would it impact people pursuing life-enhancing amenities in the creative economy. The fundamental research question dealt with in the proposed project is as follows: what is the impact on various socio-economic population groups of variations in job accessibility, alternative-work accessibility, and non-work accessibility? In order to truly capture impacts of accessibilities to jobs, alternative-jobs, and non-work opportunities, a reconceptualization of how accessibility is measured most follow.

The research objectives are:

1. to develop the concept and models of Meta-Accessibility (MA) and investigate its socio-spatial variation;
2. to develop the concept and models of Commute-Based Accessibility (CBA) and investigate its socio-spatial variation;
3. to determine the relationship of MA and CBA to commuting and urban structure;
4. to determine the CBA impacts of emerging commutes.

The proposed research will lead to new knowledge of how variations in work, alternative-work, and non-work accessibilities impact various socio-economic groups and also how this is impacted by emergent urban environments.