Performance of accessibility measures in Europe

Given the importance of accessibility measures as tools in planning, the aim of this paper is to elicit an understanding of the mechanism behind their diversity. In this paper, accessibility measures are classified according to their underpinning theories, complexity in constructions, and demand on data. The classifications comprise travel cost, gravity, constraints-based, utility-based, and composite approaches. While simpler models are less demanding on data, they fail to address the subject in a theoretically rigorous manner. The paper also summarizes issues that are important in modeling accessibility. The performance of some conferred accessibility measures are compared in a European context, and the effects of functional forms of the deterrence variable and agglomeration effect are examined.