Accessibility is a key concept in land-use and transport policy in the Netherlands and in many other Western countries. However, accessibility is often a misunderstood, and poorly measured and defined construct. In particular, accessibility studies often pay little attention to land use, transport and accessibility linkages.
The theme of this book is the evaluation of the accessibility impacts and associated user benefits of land-use and transport developments and policy strategies within an integrated land-use/transport framework. In contrast to the traditional transport analyst’s approach, it takes a geographical perspective in which the focus is on the ‘ends’ rather than the ‘means’ and on the traveller rather than the transport system: to what extent do the land-use and transport systems enable a person to reach activities they need or want to participate in?
The aim of the book is first to provide a methodological contribution to the current accessibility evaluation practice in the Netherlands. It secondly aims to improve insights into accessibility impacts of land-use and transport policy strategies in general. Alternative accessibility approaches are reviewed, developed and applied in case studies covering either the entire country or particular regions. The book extends the measurement of accessibility benefits to the benefits associated with option use of (public) transport services rather than actual use; it documents the first empirical study in the Netherlands to examine people‘s willingness to pay for having public transport services available as transport options for unexpected future use. An initial ex post evaluation study is also presented to analyse the effectiveness of compact urbanisation policies, the cornerstone of Dutch spatial planning ever since the 1970s. The book will be of interest to policy makers and researchers in the field of land use, transport and accessibility questions.
Karst Geurs works for the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, where he specialises in the evaluation of land-use and transport policy strategies, scenario studies, and land-use and transport (interaction) modelling.
