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Minimizing aggregation errors when measuring potential access to services for social groups at the city scale

Lookup NU author(s): Chengcheng Wu, Dr Neil Adrian Powe, Dr Alison Copeland

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Abstract

This research explores how to minimize aggregation errors when measuring potential access to services for social groups at the city scale. It develops a cadastral and address-based population weighting technique, the Household Space Weighting, to reduce aggregation errors caused by using population weighted centroids when applying the Have Their Centre In criterion (the Population Weighted Centroid technique). The Household Space Weighting technique is formally tested in a case study of General Practitioner practices in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. The findings suggest that the Population Weighted Centroid technique produces inaccurate population estimates for 267 out of 910 output areas (29%) in the city. When applying the two techniques to measure access for social groups at the city scale, the absolute difference in the percentage of each social group with potential accessibility is 9–10% and the relative difference in the percentage of each social group with potential access is 18–20%, taking into account the overlay of service areas at the city scale. This suggests that if service planners or policy makers want to measure potential accessibility or potential access of social groups to services for cities, it would be useful to apply a more accurate technique, or at least be aware of the implications of applying the Population Weighted Centroid technique.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Wu C, Powe NA, Copeland A

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science

Year: 2021

Volume: 48

Issue: 8

Pages: 2206-2220

Print publication date: 01/10/2021

Online publication date: 10/11/2020

Acceptance date: 29/09/2020

Date deposited: 16/11/2020

ISSN (print): 2399-8083

ISSN (electronic): 2399-8091

Publisher: Sage Publications

URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/2399808320970201

DOI: 10.1177/2399808320970201

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