Place Rank: A Flow-based Accessibility Measure

Accessibility measures the potential of opportunities for interaction. This paper proposes a new flow-based accessibility measure, “place rank” utilizing origin-destination information. Both impedance and value of opportunities are embedded in the dataset that includes origins and destination of each person utilizing the studied region. Individuals contribute to the accessibility level in their destination (work) zone with a different power. The power of the contribution depends on the attractiveness of the zone of origin. In this paper we demonstrate place rank measure of accessibility to three activities (Jobs, Resident Workers and Health Services) in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan region. In addition we compare the place rank measure to traditional gravity based and cumulative opportunity measures of accessibility. Since this measure is based on people’s actual choices of origins and destinations it is more comprehensive then previous accessibility measures in terms of impedance and opportunity calculations. Also it does not require the knowledge of travel time between origins and destinations.