The concept of accessibility is linked to the level of opportunities available for spatial interaction (flows of people, goods or information) between a set of locations, through a physical and/or digital transport infrastructure network. Accessibility has proved to be a crucial tool for understanding the framework of sustainability policy in light of best practice planning and decision-making processes. Methods such as cost–benefit analysis, multi-criteria analysis and risk analysis can benefit greatly from embedding accessibility results.

This book explores how new communication and information technologies combine with transportation to modify human spatial and temporal relationships in everyday life. It targets the need to differentiate accessibility levels among a broad range of social groupings, the need to study disparities in electronic accessibility, and the need to investigate new measures and means of representing the geography of opportunity in the information age. It explores how models based on physical notions of distance and connectivity are insufficient for understanding the new structures and behaviors that characterize current regional realities, with examples drawn from Europe, New Zealand, and North America. While traditional notions of accessibility and spatial interaction remain important, information technologies are dramatically modifying and expanding the scope of these core geographical concepts.

Haynes and Fotheringham provide a comprehensive introduction to the four basic forms of gravity models. Gravity and spatial interaction -- extensively applied in forecasting -- has provided a major contribution to social science literature. The authors trace the different applications of the gravity model to market area analysis including: determining the boundaries of market areas, determining the demand for goods or services, and examining problems of operating the retail model. Six fully-developed, real-life examples of the use of these models are presented: planning a new service, defining retail shopping boundaries, forecasting migration and voting patterns, examining university enrollment by area, determining the optimal size of a shopping complex, and locating a facility to maximize custom. The discussion is kept at an elementary mathematical level and is aimed primarily at those unacquainted with the finer workings of gravity and spatial interaction models.

Gravity models describe, and hence help predict, spatial flows of commuters, air-travelers, migrants, commodities and even messages. They are one of the oldest and most widely used of all social science models. This book presents an up-to-date, consistent and unified approach to the theory, methods and application of the gravity model - which spans from the axiomatic foundations of such models all the way to practical hints for their use. "I have found no better general method for use in applied research dealing with spatial interaction... It is against this background that the present book by Sen and Smith is most welcomed." Walter Isard

This open access book is the first to systematically introduce the principles of urban informatics and its application to every aspect of the city that involves its functioning, control, management, and future planning. It introduces new models and tools being developed to understand and implement these technologies that enable cities to function more efficiently – to become ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’. The smart city has quickly emerged as computers have become ever smaller to the point where they can be embedded into the very fabric of the city, as well as being central to new ways in which the population can communicate and act. When cities are wired in this way, they have the potential to become sentient and responsive, generating massive streams of ‘big’ data in real time as well as providing immense opportunities for extracting new forms of urban data through crowdsourcing. This book offers a comprehensive review of the methods that form the core of urban informatics from various kinds of urban remote sensing to new approaches to machine learning and statistical modelling. It provides a detailed technical introduction to the wide array of tools information scientists need to develop the key urban analytics that are fundamental to learning about the smart city, and it outlines ways in which these tools can be used to inform design and policy so that cities can become more efficient with a greater concern for environment and equity.

Mobility is fundamental to economic and social activities such as commuting, manufacturing, or supplying energy. Each movement has an origin, a potential set of intermediate locations, a destination, and a nature which is linked with geographical attributes. Transport systems composed of infrastructures, modes and terminals are so embedded in the socio-economic life of individuals, institutions and corporations that they are often invisible to the consumer. This is paradoxical as the perceived invisibility of transportation is derived from its efficiency. Understanding how mobility is linked with geography is main the purpose of this book. The third edition of The Geography of Transport Systems has been revised and updated to provide an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation. This text provides greater discussion of security, energy, green logistics, as well as new and updated case studies, a revised content structure, and new figures. Each chapter covers a specific conceptual dimension including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts. A final chapter contains core methodologies linked with transport geography such as accessibility, spatial interactions, graph theory and Geographic Information Systems for transportation (GIS-T). This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field, with a broad overview of its concepts, methods, and areas of application. The accompanying website for this text contains a useful additional material, including digital maps, PowerPoint slides, databases, and links to further reading and websites. The website can be accessed at: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans This text is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interest in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering.