2015 Volume 71 Issue 5 Pages I_293-I_303
The objective of this study is to propose a new approach for analysing the accessibility of life-related facilities, considering the possibilities of alternative transportation (e.g. pick-ups and drop-offs) by household members and friends, and of shopping errands for others. This study classifies individuals into three categories according to the proposed accessibility indices, namely, 1) people who are able to access facilities by themselves, 2) people who are not able to access facilities by themselves, but can indirectly access them through others, and 3) people who cannot use the facilities. After categorizing individuals according to the suggested three accessibility classes, this study employes a novel ‘regional accessibility measure’ that is calculated using the share of each category among the populace in a target community. This study follows a three-step analysis in order to calculate the proposed regional accessibility. This study applies complex network modeling to reproduce a social network in accordance with the attributes of the study area using survey results and other available statistical data as the first step. The second step of the study involves developing a discrete choice model of whether or not an individual can access facilities by him/herself in order to quantitatively analyze the effect of individual and household characteristics. In the last step we calculates regional accessibility by combining the results of the reproduced social network with the connections among life-related facilities on the individual level.
