Accessibility, Mobility and Connectivity

 

Accessibility

It is defined as an access to activities. Accessibility (or just access) refers to the ability to reach desired goods, services, activities and destinations (collectively called opportunities). Access is the ultimate goal of most transportation, except a small portion of travel in which movement is an end in itself (jogging, horseback riding and pleasure drives), with no destination. It is important term in understanding travel time distances and cost between activity locations.

It is also refers to the ease of movement between places. it is the ability to reach opportunities that is beneficial, not movement itself. Accessibility is the quality of travel and takes place at the community and individual level through access management techniques to provide access to various land uses. It focuses on travel time, travel cost, travel options, comfort and risk while addressing the needs of all within the community. Mobility and accessibility are considered the “ying and yang” of transportation. The goal is to increase the overall capability of the transit system while not compromising efficiency and ease of access.

Mobility 

Mobility refers to the movement of people and goods. This recognizes both automobile and transit modes, but still assumes that movement is an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. Mobility is defined as access to transportation. It is important in travel demand models to determine choices available to a consumer. Mobility is the ability and level of ease of moving goods and services. 

Some examples of mobility include: Interstate highways providing designated truck lanes to increase the overall amount of goods transported, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems with bus only lanes that increases the efficiency of moving people while removing automobiles from the roads. Congestion management systems are the trend in mobility due to the lack of funds and the land constraints to keep expanding the transit system infinitely. These systems manage travel demand through innovative ideas to increase volume and capacity. 


Mobility is how far you can go in a given amount of time. Accessibility is how much you can get to in that time. 

Connectivity

Connectivity is the relative location of an object to the destination centers. There are many different levels of hierarchy to connectivity. For example, subdivisions with many dead end cul-de-sacs may have poor connectivity with surrounding land uses. It may take a long time for a family living at the end of a cul-de-sac to get out of the neighborhood and to the main road right behind their house. The destination might not be that far away by distance, but by travel time it is. Traditional downtowns on the other hand usually have higher connectivity with surrounding neighborhoods. Residential areas designed with streets in a grid format adjacent to the downtown are often well connected with the business district and decrease the travel time and congestion.

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