Accessibility Now and in the Future

February 19, 2013

Presented in conjunction with a joint meeting of the Transportation Planning and the Environment Council and the Transportation and the Economy Council.

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About the Seminar

This presentation discussed the techniques developed for a 2010 accessibility evaluation of the Twin Cities metropolitan region as part of the interdisciplinary Access to Destinations project. The 2010 accessibility evaluation sought to generate an accurate representation of accessibility in 2010 and to identify data sources, methods, and metrics that can be used in future evaluations.

The seminar included a discussion of the methodology that can be used to implement future evaluations of accessibility, including a discussion of the development and use of software tools created for this evaluation. Study recommendations for the future were also shared, such as the importance of standardizing data sources and parameters to ensure comparability between multiple evaluations over time. Other highlights included the need for data sources and methodology that provide a good representation of actual conditions, are based on measurements rather than models, and are usable with a minimum of manual processing and technical expertise.

Speakers

David Levinson is a professor of civil engineering at the University of Minnesota and co-leader of the Access to Destinations study. His current research focuses on understanding the process of network growth, evaluating transportation technology and policy, and modeling travel behavior.

Andrew Owen is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, where he is pursuing master's degrees in civil engineering and urban and regional planning. His research interests include network structure, travel behavior, transit systems, and multimodal accessibility. 

More Information

Joe Barbeau, 612-626-2862 or barb0092@umn.edu.