A consumer welfare approach to measuring accessibility

This research originated with a need for measuring accessibility in a manner that facilitated both local and regional comparisons--without the usual drawbacks of traditional accessibility measures but still linking individual travel behavior with journey to work mode and destination choice. Additionally, it was deemed important that accessibility be defined to incorporate the attributes of mobility and be constructed from within the current transportation modeling process; this would help to ensure the practicality of implementation.; To accomplish these purposes, a new methodological approach for measuring accessibility is proposed. Specifically, two methods, used extensively in separate fields, are joined. The multinomial logit (MNL) model commonly used in the transportation modeling process, is linked with compensating variation, commonly applied in the econometrics literature. Thus, under the proposed methodological framework, accessibility may be measured using a MNL formulation, already embedded in most urban transportation mode choice models, but transformed to a comparable monetary value.; A demonstration of the approach is then conducted using data from the Puget Sound Transportation Panel. In effect, the monetary "worth" of accessibility for the AM journey to work combined mode and destination choice is established for a variety of scenarios. These scenarios include computation of the "worth" of journey to work trip accessibility when the trip is made by auto and by transit as well as when the trip is made to specific destinations, such as the Seattle Central Business District (CBD) or Bellevue.; A few of the major policy findings of this research include, among others, estimates of mode and destination accessibility for the AM journey to work trip and estimates of mode-destination accessibility by area. For example, it is established that the compensation required for an individual to be as well off before the reduction in the destination-mode choice set accessibility is, on average and over all possible King County journey to work destinations, six times higher for auto ({dollar}5.30) than for transit ({dollar}0.87).; The demonstration results also suggest that loss of the CBD journey to work accessibility requires a compensation roughly four times that of a major employment area in south King County subarea ({dollar}0.53) and 11 times that in an eastside subarea ({dollar}0.20) in order for the average individual to be as well off as before the elimination of each of the respective subareas.; Finally, the amount an individual would have to be compensated for the loss in accessibility resulting from a mode elimination to the CBD, in order to be as well off as before the change, was found to be {dollar}1.23 for auto and {dollar}0.67 for transit; the ratio of the compensating variation's (CV) is approximately 1.8 for the CBD. Additional policy scenarios examined include measures of accessibility by market segment, by trip origin, and for changing time and cost parameters.