Some Tests of Alternative Accessibility Measures: A Population Density Approach

Abstract

This paper presents nine alternative accessibility measures and evaluates their usefulness in explaining population distribution. It first evaluates these measures by using the criterion of maximum explanatory power in standard regression analysis. It then performs non-nested tests on these nine measures. The paper concludes that gravity-type accessibility measures generally perform better than other measures. The most commonly used measure, size of opportunity weighted by the reciprocal of distance, is not statistically surpassed by any other measures. Cumulative opportunity within the average commuting distance and the distance to the central business district are the poorest accessibility measures.