Accessibility analysis: How to plan people-centered mobility

Accessibility analysis is a powerful tool to understand and improve people’s mobility in cities and regions. In recent years, more mobility planners are including accessibility analysis in their work, using the latest technology.

Fortunately, there is a growing number of digital tools available for conducting reliable accessibility analysis.

Here’s a short guide to accessibility and how it can be deployed to improve mobility.

What is accessibility?

Access to mobility means access to society: education, jobs, leisure, and so much more.

Accessibility is a mobility indicator of the possibilities and limitations for people to move from A to B. That means, how they can reach places of employment and education, parks, and other destinations, by all means of transport – walking, public transit, private vehicles, or cycling.

Instead of predicting what people will do, accessibility measures what they can do. This information helps to understand the existing mobility systems and can be used to compare the impacts of projects and changes.

In other words, accessibility is a powerful indicator of how well a mobility system is serving a community. Improving accessibility empowers people to move forward.