The accessibility of European cities: theoretical framework and comparison of approaches

A brief overview is given of the different approaches employed to measure the accessibility of cities. In addition, the results of seven studies on the accessibility of cities within Europe are compared. The comparison is focused on two aspects: the rankings of the cities as a result of the different conceptualizations and the type of infrastructure involved; and the equity in accessibility given the conceptualization and the type of infrastructure. When one is interested in a ranking of cities in terms of accessibility the choice of the accessibility concept tends to be less important than the choice of the type(s) of infrastructure to be considered. When one is interested in inequalities in accessibility among cities, operationalization appears to have a much larger impact compared with rankings per se.