Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53

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Journal of Transport Geography

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Mapping accessibility in Belgium: a tool for land-use and transport planning?

Grégory Vandenbulcke a,b,*, Thérèse Steenberghen b, Isabelle Thomas a,c
a
CORE and Department of Geography, Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), Voie du Roman Pays, 34, Louvain-la-Neuve B-1348, Belgium
b
Spatial Applications Division Leuven, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), Leuven, Belgium
c
National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), Rue d’Egmont, 5, Brussels B-1000, Belgium

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: This paper compares the spatial structure of car accessibility to towns and to railway stations during peak
Accessibility and off-peak hours in Belgium for the country’s 2616 municipalities. A clustering method is applied. It is
Congestion shown that in a highly urbanised country, the situation is far from being spatially equitable in terms of
Belgium accessibility, and some areas are more favoured than others. Congestion increases spatial inequalities,
Spatial analysis
differently according to absolute or relative measures of change. By means of examples, this paper shows
that even simple accessibility indicators could be useful to support decisions taken by planners and pol-
iticians (e.g. as regards the development of residential, industrial and business park areas). Maps indicate
the spatial inequalities in terms of accessibility to urban centres and transport nodes, and the impact of
congestion on these inequalities. The absolute and relative time losses due to congestion affect different
areas in different ways. The location of new developments further increases the congestion problem and
the spatial disparities. This paper also insists on the caution that should be adopted when measuring and
interpreting ‘‘accessibility”, its measurements, its inputs, its temporal changes in absolute and relative
terms as well as the need for spatially disaggregated data.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction of congestion is a reduction in accessibility, in the sense that trucks

During the last few decades, Belgium, like many other countries,
underwent a spectacular growth in the total number of vehicles–
kilometres travelled: it increased from 29 billion in 1970 to 48 bil-
lion in 1980 and 95 billion in 2005 (FPS Economy, 2007b). Belgium
has one of the highest rates of car use in the world: 82% of all pas-
senger journeys are made by car, while public transport only ac-
counts for 14% (the other 4% represent travel made by bus
companies). The distribution is similar for freight transport (road:
70%; waterway: 14%; rail: 13%; pipeline: 3%). This results in heavy
road traffic, congestion, road accidents, social disparities and
mobility gaps, and also impacts on the economy and the environ-
ment. Moreover, in 2003, an estimated 13 million hours were
wasted by drivers in queues due to congestion in Belgium, which
represents a cost of € 150 million (Charlier, 2006; Witlox, 2006).
This massive use of the automobile and the growth of freight
transport by road not only have an impact on road traffic but also
on the efficiency of public transport when both are sharing the
same roads (Rodrigue et al., 2007). One of the major consequences
* Corresponding author. Address: CORE and Department of Geography, Univer-
sité catholique de Louvain (UCL), Voie du Roman Pays, 34, Louvain-la-Neuve B-
1348, Belgium. Tel.: +32 10 47 94 30; fax: +32 10 47 43 01.
E-mail addresses: gregory.vandenbulcke@uclouvain.be (G. Vandenbulcke),
therese.steenberghen@sadl.kuleuven.be (T. Steenberghen), isabelle.thomas@uclou-
vain.be (I. Thomas).
and cars hamper the accessibility of towns and public facilities.
Places where congestion is high suffer from both social and eco-
nomic problems (e.g. lack of equality due to the reduced mobility
of public transport, and the delocalisation of firms due to the re-
duced mobility of production units). For instance, in Brussels,
accessibility problems due to congestion and the difficulty of find-
ing a parking space for cars and deliveries are among the most sig-
nificant factors which have encouraged peri-urbanisation
(Mérenne-Schoumaker, 2003; Rodrigue et al., 2007). Congestion
problems are predicted to increase in the immediate future: by
2012, traffic jams could extend for 30 km beyond the Brussels ring
road, whereas in 2002 they ‘only’ reached 20 km (Charlier, 2006).
Consequently, action must be taken not only in transport planning
(e.g. improving and increasing the supply of public transport) but
also in urban planning (e.g. by giving more importance to the qual-
ity of life than to road infrastructure). Indeed, greater accessibility
means an increased quality of life for the individual (greater free-
dom to choose activities and more time to devote to them), and
it is even more important for people with limited opportunities
(e.g. low incomes) or physical disabilities (Makrí, 2001). For firms,
a high level of accessibility provides a competitive advantage for
some locations. With the reduction of trade barriers in Europe
and new markets opening up, it may be of prime importance for
all countries to have better levels of accessibility (Banister and Ber-
echman, 2001; Brans et al., 1981), i.e. reduced travel times to

0966-6923/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2008.04.008
40 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53
economic activity. Firms that offer services to other firms (i.e. Busi-
ness to Business) are well advised to minimise the travel time to
reach their customers, whereas firms that offer services to people
(i.e. Business to Consumer) should be located near the concentra-
tions of population (Gutiérrez and Gómez, 1999).
We suggest the use of accessibility indicators to help Belgian
policy makers and planners evaluate and find solutions to mobility
problems, and especially to adjust their policies to local conditions.
Several indicators are proposed for all Belgian communes (which
corresponds to the NUTS 6 level); we limit ourselves to individual
transport (mainly to cars) and refer to the full research report for
the analysis of the other modes of transportation (Vandenbulcke
et al., 2007). The main objective is to analyse spatial disparity by
means of several accessibility indicators and to compare peak
and off-peak accessibility. We aim to identify local inequalities
and also to pinpoint the places where congestion causes the great-
est problems. Based on various typologies of accessibility, mea-
sures are proposed to assist the decision-making of spatial
planners and policy makers.
The structure of the paper is as follows. A brief review of the lit-
erature on the concept and the measurement of accessibility is gi-
ven in Section 2. The study area is presented in Section 3. The
fourth section describes the methodology, the data and the acces-
sibility indices used in this paper, as well as some preliminary re-
sults. The cluster analysis is reported in Section 5 and the last
section concludes with operational guidelines.
2. Definition and measurement of accessibility
2.1. Definitions
Accessibility becomes more and more essential in land-use
and transport decisions, thus having significant economic, social
and environmental implications (Geurs and Ritsema van Eck,
2001). Jointly with positive externalities such as investments or
a favourable policy environment, accessibility influences the
organisation and the dynamics of regions and, consequently,
the location of activities and individuals (Bavoux et al., 2005).
Its measurement is then a convenient tool to direct decisions ta-
ken by the planners and politicians. For instance, the accessibility
patterns can help them to analyse the potentials of the develop-
ment of industrial and business park areas as employment cen-
tres by focusing on the accessibility to working population.
Moreover, companies and employers usually want to know from
which location they can reach a large number of consumers and
workers, so helping them to locate their businesses and services
(Zhu and Liu, 2004). Modelling and mapping accessibility is then
of great help in order to evaluate the expected market area size
and justifies the recent upsurge in the use of geographic informa-
tion system (GIS)-based accessibility analysis for business and
residential planning (Ritsema van Eck and de Jong, 1999). For
example, Geertman and Ritsema van Eck (1995) used accessibil-
ity measures combined with the use of GIS (geographical infor-
mation system) in order to conduct a major residential
programme in the most densely populated part of The Nether-
lands (i.e. Randstad Holland); on the basis of relevant location
criteria (i.e. the location in regard to major employment centres
and key supply centres), they produced ‘‘potential surfaces” to
determine the location of possible building sites.
Accessibility is a frequently-used concept but there is no con-
sensus about its definition and formulation. It is a common term
experienced by diverse individuals (i.e. characterised by different
needs, abilities and opportunities) at any place and moment of
the day, which results in considerable variation in components in-
cluded in the measure, and in how it is formulated. Accessibility is
commonly defined as the ease with which activities can be reached
from a certain place and with a certain system of transport (Morris
et al., 1979; Johnston et al., 2000). The concept generally takes the
combination of two elements into account: the location on a sur-
face relative to suitable destinations and the characteristics of
the transport network (Vickerman, 1974). Handy and Niemeier
(1997) suggested that accessibility is determined by the spatial
distribution of potential destinations, the ease of reaching each
destination, as well as the magnitude, quality and character of
the activities found there. Each definition includes one or more
components which affect accessibility (e.g. the location of activi-
ties, or the system of transport). Geurs and Ritsema van Eck
(2001) formulated a very complete definition of the concept:
according to them, accessibility reflects ‘‘the extent to which the
land-use transport system enables (groups of) individuals or goods
to reach activities or destinations by means of a (combination of)
transport mode(s)” (p. 36). This implies that the concept of accessi-
bility is determined by four interdependent components: a trans-
port component (transport system), a land-use component (the
magnitude, quality and characteristics of activities found at each
destination), a temporal component (availability of activities) and
an individual component (needs, abilities and opportunities of
individuals).
The concept of ‘‘peripherality” is also used in the literature and
is synonymous with inaccessibility to economic activity (Keeble
et al., 1988). Peripheral regions generally face poor economic per-
formances and negative net-migration rates (Spiekermann and
Neubauer, 2002). However, it is not always true and some regions
can have a high economic performance in spite of low levels of
accessibility (e.g. Sweden).
2.2. Measurement of accessibility
Accessibility is not easy to quantify, and there is no best ap-
proach to measuring it (Gutiérrez, 2001). Different situations and
purposes require different approaches (Gutiérrez and Urbano,
1996; Handy and Niemeier, 1997; Linneker and Spence, 1996).
The choice of an indicator affects the spatial pattern of accessibility
(Talen and Anselin, 1998) and is therefore critical for land-use and
transport planning. Moreover, the detail and accuracy of the anal-
ysis should reflect the needs of a specific situation (Halden, 2002).
In the scientific literature, accessibility measurements have gener-
ally been used to evaluate the performance of transport networks
as well as access to employment opportunities and other facilities
for various socio-economic groups (Kwan, 1998). The measure-
ment of accessibility also plays a key role in evaluating the compet-
itive advantage of some locations due to the quality of their
transport infrastructure.
Handy and Niemeier (1997) classified the available measures
into three categories: isochrones (which indicate the number/pro-
portion of destinations reachable within a given travel time/dis-
tance/cost from an origin), gravity-based measures (which
assume a gradual decrease in accessibility as the travel time to des-
tinations increases) and utility-based measures (which estimate
the accessibility at the individual level). Another classification
was established by Geurs and Ritsema van Eck (2001) and Geurs
and van Wee (2004), who suggested four basic perspectives: (1)
infrastructure-based measures, (2) activity-based measures, (3)
person-based measures and (4) utility-based measures.
Infrastructure-based measures analyse the observed or simu-
lated performance of the transport infrastructure. Typical are the
level of congestion or the average speed on the road network. Such
measures provide comprehensible information on the service level
of transport infrastructure and are easy to operationalise (e.g. the
necessary data are often readily available and measures are easy
to understand for planners, policy makers or researchers), but they
do not include a land-use component (e.g. they are not sensitive to
 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53
changes in the spatial distribution of activities) and they are not
able to treat temporal constraints as well as individual characteris-
tics (Geurs and Ritsema van Eck, 2001; Geurs and van Wee, 2004).
Activity-based measures analyse accessibility at locations on a
macro-level, i.e. the range of available activities with respect to
their distribution in space and time. Also more complex measures
include capacity restrictions of supplied activity characteristics to
include competition effects (e.g. competition for job vacancies or
hospital beds; see e.g. van Wee et al., 2001). Common activity-
based measures are cumulative-opportunity measures, potential
measures (also called gravity-based measures), as well as mea-
sures based on competition effects. Derived from the gravity mod-
el, potential measures are very often used in planning as well as
land-use and transport evaluations (van Wee et al., 2001). Origi-
nally applied by Stewart (1947, 1948) in order to calculate ‘‘popu-
lation potentials” for different regions in the United States, they
were subsequently used in location analysis (Harris, 1954) and to
describe accessibility to employment activities (Hansen, 1959). Po-
tential measures are derived by weighting the opportunities lo-
cated in an area by a measure of attraction (e.g. population,
purchasing power, total retail floor space, or the number of house-
holds) and discounting each opportunity by a measure of imped-
ance (Knox, 1978; Handy, 1993; Geertman and Ritsema van Eck,
1995; Wyatt, 1997; Johnston et al., 2000). Hence, potential mea-
sures present the advantage to account for impedance and attrac-
tion of destinations but a potential value is not easily interpreted
and the intrazonal potential (i.e. the number of activities within
origin zone is weighted by the average travel time or distance
within this zone) has a substantial impact on the measurement
of potential values (Geertman and Ritsema van Eck, 1995). The first
shortcoming can be overcome by modifying the potential formula
in such a way that the measure gives meaningful units, and the
second is avoided when the spatial framework approximates a
continuous representation of space (Frost and Spence, 1995; Geert-
man and Ritsema van Eck, 1995).
Also called ‘‘space–time accessibility measures” (see e.g. Kwan,
1998; Miller, 1999; Miller and Wu, 2000; Kwan and Weber, 2003),
person-based measures analyse accessibility at the individual level
(i.e. on a micro-level) and assume that ‘‘accessibility applies to a
particular individual at a particular time and place” (Helling,
1998). Unlike conventional measures (i.e. infrastructure-based
and activity-based measures), person-based measures consider
accessibility as an attribute of individuals (Kwan and Weber,
2003); they evaluate accessibility in terms of an individual’s ability
to reach opportunities given the person’s daily activity programme
and spatio-temporal constraints (Landau et al., 1982; Kwan, 1998).
Hence, a disaggregation is performed by person-based measures
and the accessibility is evaluated separately for different trip pur-
poses, transport modes, income, gender, age, occupational groups
and activity types (Wachs and Kumagai, 1973; Ben-Akiva and Ler-
man, 1979; Handy and Niemeier, 1997; Kwan, 1998). For example,
Kwan (1998) showed that the male and female adults of the same
household experience different levels of individual accessibility.
Church and Marston (2003) also analysed the differences in acces-
sibility between individuals with physical disabilities and individ-
uals without disabilities. Originated from the space–time
geography of Hägerstrand (1970), person-based measures often
use space–time prisms to describe the travel patterns in space
and time. These prisms can be interpreted as accessibility mea-
sures, i.e. they can give the potential area which can be reached gi-
ven predefined time constraints. Miller (1999) defined a potential
path space (PPS) delimiting all locations in the space and time that
can be reached by an individual (given certain constraints). The
projection of this PPS on the x–y space produces the corresponding
two-dimensional potential path area (PPA) in which all feasible
locations k are included, given a number of space–time constraints
41
(Kwan, 1998). Modified space–time prisms also have been devel-
oped to measure the individual accessibility, given changes in
activity schedules, multistop trip chaining and various travel
speeds (Hall, 1983; Arentze et al., 1994). Generally, it is not so easy
to operationalise the space–time framework as an accessibility
measure. However, the increasing availability of georeferenced
individual data and the drastic increase in computer power as well
as the recent development of methods using network-based GIS
procedures allow to overcome such operational difficulties (see
e.g. Miller, 1991; Kwan and Weber, 2003; Kwan, 2004).
Utility-based measures analyse the economic benefits (e.g. con-
sumer surplus) that individuals derive from access to spatially dis-
tributed activities. This approach estimates the accessibility at the
individual level and accounts not only for users’ characteristics
(e.g. income) but also for modal characteristics (e.g. travel costs;
Banister and Berechman, 2001; Geurs and Ritsema van Eck,
2001). The main assumptions on which the utility approach is
based are defined by Koenig (1980). Firstly, people associate a car-
dinal utility with each alternative they are facing and choose the
alternative associated with the maximum utility. Secondly, the
utility function can be represented as the sum of a non-random
(deterministic) component and a random (stochastic) component.
Specifying such a function requires the incorporation of variables
representing the attributes of each choice, reflecting the attractive-
ness of the destination and the travel impedance, the socio-eco-
nomic characteristics of the individual (or household), and
individual tastes and preferences (Handy and Niemeier, 1997).
Commonly used in economic studies, utility-based measures are
therefore difficult to interpret and make severe demands on data.
Given that each accessibility measure requires different data
and differs in its operationalisation, interpretability and communi-
cability, a major methodological challenge is to find the right bal-
ance between a measurement which is theoretically and
empirically sound and one which is sufficiently plain to be useful
in land-use and transport planning. Although infrastructure mea-
sures (e.g. travel speed) are easy to interpret and communicate
to planners and decision makers, such measures are not very useful
for evaluating the accessibility impacts because the spatial, tempo-
ral and individual components are not incorporated in the mea-
sure. On the other hand, more complex measures such as utility-
based or person-based measures use a better theoretical basis
and have the advantage to incorporate individuals’ characteristics.
Nevertheless, this theoretical superiority of both utility-based and
person-based measures makes them more difficult to operationa-
lise and more demanding on data. After evaluating the availability
of data, models and techniques, as well as time and budget, activ-
ity-based measures seemed to us to be the best way of analysing
accessibility at a national level. Such measures describe the level
of accessibility of a range of spatially distributed activities. Com-
mon measures are distance measures (which analyse the relative
position of each location in the transportation network), isochro-
nes and gravity-based measures. During the research project, type
of activity-based measure was applied to different modes of trans-
portation (car, train, underground, bus) and different types of loca-
tion (towns, airports, railway stations, underground stations, bus
stops). This paper is limited to distance measurements. We refer
to the full report (Vandenbulcke et al., 2007) for other transporta-
tion modes, terminals, infrastructures or scales.
Regardless of the approach, four interrelated issues must be
considered before measuring accessibility (Handy and Niemeier,
1997). First, the degree and type of disaggregation is quite impor-
tant. Disaggregation can be considered not only in spatial and so-
cio-economic terms but also according to the purpose of the trip
or the type of activity. In this paper, we only consider communes
and the time of day (see Section 4.1). Second, origins and destina-
tions must be defined. For all the distance measurements used
42 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53
here, the origins are taken to be the centroid of the commune. On
the other hand, the destinations can be towns (large cities, regional
cities, or small towns with a large number of facilities), or railway
stations. Thirdly, the travel impedance has to be specified: time
units are used because they are more relevant for the transport
of passengers than either Euclidian or Manhattan distances, ex-
pressed in kilometres. Travel time varies according to the type of
roads used between two locations (e.g. motorways allow high
speeds, which reduce the travelling time). Moreover, time units
can incorporate more time components (e.g. waiting time) than
the simple journey time. Finally, the attractiveness of a destination
is often estimated by factors such as the number of activities or
jobs. In this study, attractiveness is considered for railway stations
as well as for towns. We assumed that the frequency of stopping
trains determines the attractiveness of stations. Belgian towns
were simply rated as attractive (1) or not attractive (0). Large cities,
regional towns and small towns with numerous facilities (Van
Hecke, 1998) were considered as destinations. It is worthy of note
that this strong rating has the disadvantage of disregarding the
influence of potential public facilities (located in smallest villages)
on the accessibility of nearby communes. Hence, accessibility to
towns could be probably underestimated in some cases. The use
of potential measures could be of great help to overcome this
shortcoming.
3. The study area
The analysis was conducted on Belgium, a small and highly
urbanised European country with more than 10 million inhabitants
spread over approximately 30,000 km2. The population density
varies from 30 inhabitants/km2 in rural regions to over
20,000 inhabitants/km2 in highly urbanised areas. The country var-
ies in terms of topography and urbanisation, as well as economic,
social, political and environmental contexts (see e.g. Mérenne
et al., 1997). Urban sprawl is one of the major characteristics of
the geography of Belgium. New urban areas are spreading in rural
and low density areas, along the main transportation links (e.g.
motorways). Obviously this has consequences. Impacts related
with the sprawling nature of Belgian towns are adverse to the nat-
ural and rural environments, as well as to the quality of life for peo-
ple living in towns; in Belgium, the extension of towns in rural and
poorly served areas favours the use of the car and then causes con-
gestion, pollution (air and noise) and physical inactivity. Other im-
pacts are the creation of barriers for the ecosystems (e.g.
construction of residential developments, new roads, etc.) and an
increased consumption of energy and soils (EEA, 2006).
The Belgian town network is dominated by Brussels (see Appen-
dix A), with more than 1.5 million inhabitants in its extended ur-
ban agglomeration. It is centrally located and sprawls out into
neighbouring regions, across its administrative borders (see e.g.
Dujardin et al., 2007). Approximately 57% of the Belgian population
lives in towns, which cover 26% of the national surface (Van der
Haegen et al., 1996). These numbers indicate the importance of ur-
ban sprawl, sub- and peri-urbanisation in Belgium. The country is
subdivided into three regions (Flemish Region, Walloon Region and
Brussels-Capital Region), three communities, 10 provinces, 44 dis-
tricts, 589 communes and 2616 old communes. The three regions
are, respectively, the Flemish Region (13,522 km2 and 6,117,440
inhabitants on 1st January 2007), the Walloon Region
(16,844 km2 and 3,435,879 inhabitants on 1st January 2007) and
the Brussels-Capital Region (162 km2 and 1,031,215 inhabitants
on 1st January 2007; Mérenne et al., 1997; FPS Economy, 2007a).
At the smallest scale, the communes stem from the fusion of old
communes and are classified into the NUTS 5 and NUTS 6 level,
respectively. In this study, only old communes are used.
At the EU level, Belgium is quite accessible (see e.g. Gutiérrez
and Urbano, 1996; Schürmann et al., 1997; Spiekermann and
Wegener, 1996; Spiekermann et al., 2002). The Belgian road net-
work is dense and intensely used, especially in the Brussels–An-
twerp–Ghent triangle. However, the southern part of the country
is less accessible (see e.g. Thomas and Verhetsel, 1999; Thomas
et al., 2003). The rail network is also dense and centred on Brussels
(Thomas et al., 2003).
4. Data and methods
4.1. Construction of the OD matrix
We here limit ourselves to accessibility by car along the road
network from any Belgian commune to two different types of des-
tinations: the major cities (and their facilities) and the railway sta-
tions. In order to compute accessibility indices, the origins and
destinations are represented by nodes, e.g. communes and railway
stations are simplified into points. The basic data needed are: (1)
network data (road network and geographical coordinates of rail-
way stations), (2) origins and destinations, i.e. the administrative
boundaries of all Belgian communes, the location of their centroids
as well as their hierarchical rank in terms of urbanisation (Van
Hecke, 1998). In this paper, a centroid corresponds to the geomet-
ric centre of the administrative statistical ward of the commune. It
is assumed to represent the highest concentration of population in
the commune.
Network data include line coverages representing the road net-
work and were obtained from the three regional Ministries in
charge of transport. These data allowed us to construct a topolog-
ical graph which consists of a non-empty set of nodes connected by
a possibly empty set of arcs (roads). The graph is undirected,
weighted, non-planar and connected. It has 510,469 nodes and
627,856 arcs. It is noteworthy that the road network was taken
on its whole, which means that not only motorways but also arte-
rial, collector and local roads were considered. Each arc is charac-
terised by a length and a maximum allowed speed (which is
attributed according to the type of road, e.g. the allowed speed lim-
it is 120 km/h on Belgian motorways, 90 km/h on major arterial
roads, 70 km/h on feeder/collector roads and 50 or 30 km/h on lo-
cal roads). Both length and speed are used to calculate the travel
time on the road network.
At the scale of the country, the 589 current Belgian communes
are too coarse for accessibility computation, especially as their
shapes and sizes vary a lot. When destinations are railway stations,
using the 20,464 statistical wards would have led to a giant origin/
destination matrix (more than 11 million solutions) and conse-
quently unmanageable computation times. Therefore, an earlier
definition of 2616 communes was adopted as the basic spatial unit
(BSU). The average area of the BSU was thus 12 km2. The centroid
of each BSU (after it was snapped to the road network, with a tol-
erance of less than 100 m) was used for distance computation.
Such centroids summarise the information about the BSUs. The ur-
ban hierarchy of Belgian communes was used for selecting destina-
tions (Van Hecke, 1998). Hence, the 2616 BSUs correspond to the
origins in the origin–destination (OD) matrix, while there are
two types of destinations: the main towns (53 nodes) and the rail-
way stations (545 nodes). It is a choice of the Belgian Ministries not
to include any node from neighbouring countries (e.g. Luxembourg
and Lille), although considering this would certainly reduce the
inaccessibility of some areas.
Weights are associated with the arcs and nodes. Railway sta-
tions are weighted according to the frequency of services (SNCB/
NMBS, 2005). Integrating this variable into a so-called ‘‘generalised
time” allows us to account for the attractiveness of each station.
 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53
Arcs (i.e. roads) are weighted using a density-based model. Travel
times are computed along the road network between all 2616
nodes and for two periods of time: peak (i.e. from 7 to 9 a.m. and
from 3 to 6 p.m.) and off-peak hours (i.e. from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.).
Using speed limitations as well as population and job densities (ob-
tained from the 2001 census of population), we were able to in-
clude an ‘‘impedance function”, reflecting the time taken to cross
urban areas, cities as well as smaller towns. Measurements carried
out without impedance produce results that underestimate travel
time. Assuming that population and jobs generate the same quan-
tity of traffic, the corrected travel time can be expressed as:
Tij ¼ t ij þ t ij :½ð1  ea:Ji Þ þ ð1  ea:Pi Þ
where Tij is the corrected travel time from i to j (including imped-
ance), tij is the travel time from i to j (without impedance), a is a
coefficient to calibrate, Ji is the density of jobs in commune i and
Pi is the population density. In Eq. (1), population and job densities
are used to compute the impedance function and correct travel
time. Using densities is more representative than absolute mea-
sures (e.g. the number of inhabitants), especially for large com-
munes where population is highly concentrated on only a part of
the surface. In this case, using the total number of inhabitants or
jobs might not be representative of the road traffic in communes
characterised by sharp changes of land-use (e.g. between rural
and urban areas). Based on Eq. (1), we also observe that the level
of impedance (which can be calibrated through a) makes it possible
to consider the different saturation levels of roads; in other words, a
can be used to represent a period of time (e.g. rush hours), charac-
terised by a particular level of road congestion. The Pearson’s prod-
uct moment correlation coefficient between the computed off-peak
travel times and those obtained from a route planner (Viamichelin)
was very high (0.97) and highly significant. The lack of reliable
empirical data for travel movements in peak periods makes it
impossible to calibrate the model for congested times. Using a fixed
value of a, a hypothetical state of road saturation was generated on
the basis of the location of regular traffic jams. These results were
further validated by experts.
Renowned for its ability to visualise, analyse and model geo-
graphical data (Wu and Hine, 2003), GIS technology was used
to combine the different layers of information (i.e. integrate ori-
gins and destinations within the road network) and spatially as-
sess the different levels of accessibility. The road network was
then used to construct an OD matrix in Network Analyst (an
extension of ArcGIS 9.1). The results are presented in the form
of a table of travel times between each origin (i) and destination
(j) in Belgium.
4.2. Description of the accessibility variables
The variables are here restricted to: (1) travel time to the closest
large Belgian town and (2) travel time to the closest railway sta-
tion. Assumption is made that individuals take the shortest path
(in terms of time units). We measure fairness in the distribution
of goods and services (e.g. hospitals, shops, schools and jobs), spa-
tial equity between the communes. This measure of fairness here
refers to the differences in accessibility derived from the spatially
distributed activities (located in the towns) and the transport sys-
tem, and a major issue related to this is to maximize accessibility
to key nodes of transport, housing, employment, leisure and other
social activities. Indeed, it reduces the global time spent on trips to
work and for other purposes (Gutiérrez and Gómez, 1999). Thus
the spatial equity here connotes to the fact that all individuals
should be equally treated, wherever they live in Belgium, i.e. they
should benefit from an equal spatial separation from facilities
(Tsou et al., 2005).
43
4.2.1. Travel time to the closest large Belgian town
In a first step, we assume that the largest Belgian towns corre-
spond to the three groups of urban communes defined by Van
Hecke (1998). These are the five largest cities (Brussels, Antwerp,
Ghent, Liège and Charleroi), 17 regional cities (such as Bruges, Leu-
ven or Namur) and 31 small towns (e.g. Wavre and Vilvoorde). The
choice of these urban communes as destinations is justified by
their centrality: towns generally concentrate population and activ-
ities (offices, administrations, tourism, transport and so on). As a
result, most traffic flows converge on towns.
Fig. 1 shows that the present structure of the urban network
generates spatial disparities and has the effect that the southern
ð1Þ part of the country is quite remote: off-peak travel time to the clos-
est town often exceeds 30 min. In the northern part of the country,
the accessibility is on the average better, with some less accessible
areas mainly located at the border of the country. This is mainly an
edge effect, since urban centres across the Belgian border were not
included in the calculations. It is also worthy of note that remote
areas (i.e. whose travel time exceeds 30 min) are characterised
by low densities of population and activities. Furthermore, some
of these remote areas correspond to the most deprived sections
of the Belgian population. The situation is then far from being equi-
table when accessibility to the closest town is considered.
During peak hours (Fig. 2), the remote areas (i.e. more than
30 min) are more extensive: a larger number of communes are lo-
cated more than 30 min travel time from any urban centre. This is
especially true in the southern part of the country, in the periphe-
ral areas and between towns as the time needed to get to the near-
est town increases because of the time spent in traffic jams. Hence,
by additive effects, rural areas suffer from an increase in conges-
tion in urban areas. Congestion is certainly a problem within towns
but it also weighs heavily on the transportation bill of other areas.
Compared to the spatial pattern obtained for off-peak hours, high
local differences can also be observed. Indeed the way the road
network is laid out results in the apparition of sorts of ‘‘enclaves”,
i.e. areas that are characterised by smaller values of travel time
than their surrounding environment. It is also observed that not
only deprived and low-density areas are disadvantaged but also
some suburbs (generally characterised by moderate densities and
relatively high incomes). Enclaves are observed in municipalities
which, although located near urban centres and thus, apparently
very accessible, need very long travel times to reach these cities
during peak hours. This means that, in term of accessibility to typ-
ical urban facilities such as secondary schools, hospitals, etc. they
need as much time as many peripheral municipalities.
Figs. 1 and 2 can easily be accompanied by tables using the GIS
function. The percentage of communes, population and surface
area in each travel time band in peak and off-peak hours are re-
ported in Appendix B. It clearly shows that different spatial struc-
tures are generated in peak and off-peak hours. At peak times, a
large part of the population living in and around towns (in the
agglomeration or in the suburbs) has to spend a considerable time
travelling, and hence the gap in terms of accessibility decreases: for
example, more than 46% of the population has to spend more than
15 min travelling to a town in peak hours, while in off-peak hours
this only applies to 13% of the population.
The calculation did not take travel preferences into consider-
ation. The real travel behaviour is likely to result in even longer tra-
vel times, as people may prefer to go to more distant urban centres
due to, for example, language and/or cultural factors. Congestion
and other factors may also affect the time of day people choose
to travel. Such factors were not further researched in this case.
4.2.2. Travel time to the closest railway station
It is assumed that commuters use the car as a feeder mode for
access trips; they leave their vehicles in a car park and take the
44 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53

Fig. 1. Travel time (minutes) by car to the closest town during off-peak hours.

Fig. 2. Travel time (minutes) by car to the closest town during peak hours.
 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53
train afterwards. This combined use of car and train refers to the
concept of ‘Park and Ride’. Travel time to the closest railway station
is computed in such a way that trips are carried out by car only.
The time taken to access rail transport consists not only of the
travel time by car from a commune i to a railway station j but also
includes a measure of the waiting time for the next train. Inhabit-
ants of commune i could choose a more distant station with a high-
er train frequency rather than the closest station with a lower level
of service. Hence, time to rail transport is computed as the sum of
the travel time tij by car from municipality i to railway station j,
and the average waiting time wj for a train at j. This ‘‘generalised
time” Tij is given by:
T ij ¼ tij þ wj
The average waiting time wj is based on the inverse of the number
of trains serving station j on a weekday. Note that wj does not make
the distinction between the number of trains during peak hours and
those during off-peak hours; such a distinction should require addi-
tional data, describing the supply level for each station and for both
periods of time (peak and off-peak hours). Following this, wj was
just computed on a daily basis. Given that on the average a traveller
would arrive by chance midway between trains, a correcting factor
K (2) is introduced to reduce wj to a realistic value:
1 H
wj ¼ : ð3Þ
K fj
where H is the time during which trains run on the network (20
hours a day) and fj is the frequency of weekday trains at railway sta-
tion j. The travel time to the closest railway station is thus the min-
imum generalised time Tij separating the commune i from a station
j. Inhabitants of commune i will generally choose to use the railway
station whose generalised time Tij is least. Using train frequency
data (SNCB/NMBS, 2005), the generalised time was computed for
each Belgian station (Figs. 3 and 4). Once again, the southern part
Fig. 3. Generalised time (minutes) to the closest railway station during off-peak hours.
45
of the country is characterised by low values of accessibility to rail
transport during off-peak hours (Fig. 3). With the exception of com-
munes located close to the Namur–Luxembourg line, the travel time
to the closest station from communes in the south is generally more
than 20 or even 25 min. When communes are located close to a sta-
tion (in terms of network distance) but have high generalised travel
time values, the poor accessibility can be explained by low train fre-
quency at the closest station. Such communes are often rural, gen-
erally characterised by a small population and low job density. They
are often deprived areas in terms of transportation and economic
activities.
During peak hours (Fig. 4), there are more communes where
people need more than 25 min to reach the nearest train station.
ð2Þ
Interestingly, the increase in peripherality is especially evident in
the northern part of the country (near The Netherlands) and af-
fects a large number of suburban communes. More enclaves are
observed on the map, due to combined effects of the rail network
and the location of jobs and population. The high peri-urbanisa-
tion increases road traffic and hence travel time to reach a rail-
way station. Better land-use and transport planning (e.g. using
indicators measuring the accessibility of population to the public
transport facilities) could help to improve the mobility and re-
duce the social inequalities due to the increasing congestion.
For instance, new residential developments should be preferably
concentrated near public transport facilities. This could lead to
a higher modal share for public transport and, at the same time,
to a traffic reduction on the road network (or at the very least to
a traffic mitigation for the future). Within the same framework,
Lau and Chiu (2004) showed that a compact land-use combined
with an efficient integration and performance of public transport
provide higher levels of equality in terms of accessibility to
employment activities than those obtained for cities (or small
countries) with dispersed land-use. Belgium obviously belongs
to the latter category.
46 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53

Fig. 4. Generalised time (minutes) to the closest railway station during peak hours.

Once again, the cartographic results were quantified using GIS;
the same values (for communes, population and surface areas)
were computed for each period of travel time as for access to
towns. Appendix C shows that the railway network is less accessi-
ble in peak hours than in off-peak hours; for example, the popula-
tion located more than 15 min from the railway network increases
from 17.2% during off-peak hours to 37.4% during peak hours. This
situation is not compatible with the overall purposes of sustainable
mobility and it confirms that planning measures should be ur-
gently implemented in order to reach a more sustainable mobility.
Residential locations should be privileged near stations with suit-
able train frequencies.
4.3. Congestion and peripherality
Interesting spatial differences are observed not only in terms of
accessibility but also in terms of time of travel (peak and off-peak
hours). It is well known that congestion affects large cities and
makes travel more difficult but our analysis also shows that con-
gestion in and around destination areas increases the peripherality
of some rural areas. Table 1 demonstrates that the correlations be-
tween the different aspects of accessibility are lower in peak hours
than in off-peak hours (e.g. the correlation between the travel time
to the closest town and the travel time to the closest railway sta-
tion is reduced from 0.74 during off-peak hours to 0.60 during peak
hours). This means that congestion increases spatial inequalities.
Such a result can be explained by: (1) an increase in the spatial
divergence of travel times during peak hours and (2) the existence
of local isolation due to road congestion (i.e. enclaves, or ‘‘periph-
eral islands”). Consequently, the choice of a particular mode of
transport could be more important during peak hours than during
off-peak hours. As expected, train could be a better alternative dur-
ing peak hours.
Comparing correlation coefficients between peak and off-peak
hours, it is observed that the resemblance between the distribu-
tions is generally high (Table 1). This does not mean that there is
no change in travel time between the two periods; it simply shows
that the spatial structure of accessibility is the same, i.e. deprived
and accessible areas remain the same. Scatterplots were also made
(see Appendices D and E) and show that in some communes the
travel time increases very markedly – by up to 100% – during peak
hours. Most of these communes are urban and suffer from conges-
tion. For some remote communes, the scatterplots also show a
divergence in travel times between the two time periods (which-
ever measure of accessibility is considered). In a country like Bel-
gium, larger distances increase the probability of having

Table 1
Pearson product–moment correlation coefficients between the accessibility measures (all coefficients are significant at or beyond the 99.9% level)

Off-peak hours Peak hours

Minimum time to towns Minimum time to rail transport Minimum time to towns Minimum time to rail transport
Off-peak Minimum time to towns 1 – – –
hours Minimum time to rail transport 0.742 1 – –
Peak hours Minimum time to towns 0.963 0.685 1 –
Minimum time to rail transport 0.611 0.941 0.600 1
 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53
Fig. 5. Absolute time lost (%) due to congestion going to a town (computed from travel times during off-peak hours).
alternative routes but the time losses are also larger due to conges-
tion (which varies according to the area being crossed, i.e. whether
it is rural or urban). In other words, congestion particularly affects
urban areas in terms of relative variation and rural areas in terms
of absolute values. The latter become less accessible at peak hours
but, in relative terms, urban areas are more affected by the waste
of travel time due to congestion. Fig. 5 illustrates the first part of
this statement. With some exceptions (e.g. Antwerp or Ghent), it
is observed that the absolute time lost due to congestion going
to the closest town is higher in rural and low-density communes
than in urban areas. On average, approximately 6 min are lost on
the road while travelling to the closest town during peak hours
(Table 2). When trips are carried out to railway stations, this loss
of time is limited to 4 min. Concerning the second part of the state-
ment, the relative time lost due to congestion can be computed
from the travel times during peak and off-peak hours as:
 
T peak hours  T off-peak hours
DT % ¼ :100
Toff-peak hours
where DT% is the relative time lost due to congestion, Tpeak hours is
the travel time during peak hours and Toff-peak hours is the travel time
during off-peak hours. Eq. (4) yields the additional travel time
needed in peak hours (expressed as a percentage of the time taken
in off-peak hours). Fig. 6 presents the results for stations; at first
Table 2
Comparison of the mean travel time during off-peak and peak hours
Statistics for travel time Towns Railway stations
Off-peak hours Mean (a) 13.4 14.4
Standard deviation 8.5 6.5
Peak hours Mean (b) 19.8 18.2
Standard deviation 10.1 7.2
47
glance, it shows clearly that densely populated communes are char-
acterised by higher values, which confirms the fact that congestion
particularly affects urban areas. Conversely, the more rural com-
munes (especially these located in the southern part of the country)
appear less affected by congestion and ‘‘benefit” from a comparative
advantage reflected in lower relative values. There seems to be no
significant differences between the population densities and the
areas affected by congestion. This is confirmed by a correlation of
0.68 between the two measures. This coefficient also shows that
the relationship between population densities and congestion is
far from perfect, which is partly due to a strong peri-urbanisation
around the main Belgian cities. Conceptually, each commune is
therefore characterised by an ‘‘immobility index” which is higher
when congestion is high. Urban communes generally have a high
‘‘immobility index”, while communes in the southern part of the
country do not really suffer from important time losses due to
congestion.
ð4Þ
5. Accessibility in Belgium: a synthesis
The 2616 communes have been classified separately for peak
and off-peak hours on the basis of the two accessibility variables
(travel time to the closest town and to the closest railway sta-
tion). Various clustering methods were employed to test the sen-
sitivity of the spatial structure to the method used. The
ascending hierarchical method using Ward’s criterion proved to
be most successful (Ward, 1963). This method minimises the
sum of squares of any pair of clusters to be merged at each step.
In other words, it seeks to minimise the information loss associ-
ated with each grouping. It is generally regarded as an efficient
method but it presents the disadvantage to be sensitive to outli-
ers and strongly biased towards generating clusters with the
same number of observations. Finally, a consensus between the
48 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53

Fig. 6. Relative time lost (%) due to congestion going to a railway station (computed from travel times during off-peak hours).

Fig. 7. Cluster analysis of accessibility to a town and a railway station during off-peak hours.
 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53
Fig. 8. Cluster analysis of accessibility to a town and a railway station during peak hours.
CCC (cubic clustering criterion), pseudo-F statistic and pseudo-t2
statistic suggests that four clusters should be used (whichever
period of time). These four clusters were summarised graphically
in Figs. 7 and 8.
During off-peak hours (Fig. 7), communes in cluster 1 have the
highest level of accessibility to towns and rail transport. This clus-
ter characterises the network of towns and their associated trans-
port network. The map clearly reveals the population and job
densities as well as the transportation network. Communes in clus-
ter 2 also have high levels of accessibility, only slightly below those
in cluster 1. This cluster mainly covers peri-urban and industrial
areas. Cluster 3 is characterised by relatively high scores on both
variables – in other words, communes in this cluster have low
accessibility levels. They are mainly rural and industrial com-
munes, generally remote from rail transport and towns. Cluster 4
is made up of peripheral communes, mainly located in the south-
ern part of the country and near the border with The Netherlands,
which are quite remote from any Belgian town and have poor ac-
cess to rail transport.
During peak hours (Fig. 8), road congestion is particularly acute
in urban communes and causes a large decrease in accessibility; it
also reduces the number of communes included in cluster 1. The
reduction in accessibility is all the more important since these
communes are highly congested. During peak hours, these com-
munes are faced with mobility problems and suffer from a greater
reduction in accessibility than less congested areas. For instance,
the southern part of the country (e.g. Arlon) is not highly congested
and does not suffer from a drop in accessibility. The general picture
in Fig. 8 shows that congestion is important everywhere, with the
exception of some peripheral areas characterised by low economic
and demographic dynamics.
Through these examples, we show how transport accessibility
confirms urban geography processes: it is well known that urban
49
sprawl is one of the major characteristics of the geography of Bel-
gium (EEA, 2006). Originated from the need to have more space
combined with an increase in mobility (particularly facilitated by
the car ownership) during the second half of the 20th century, this
sprawl of the city and its facilities in the surrounding countryside
leads to higher car shares and longer distances travelled by means
of motorised modes (i.e. car and public transport). Indeed, the
increasing number of new residential developments constructed
in peripheral areas (i.e. remote from any public transport facility)
favours the use of the car, which causes longer travel time and a
reduction of accessibility due to the resulting congestion. As illus-
trated, Fig. 9 shows that some peripheral communes located in the
outskirts of large urban places (such as Brussels, Antwerp or Liège)
were characterised by a high demographic growth between 1990
and 2005 (more than 20% in some cases). In particular, Fig. 9 shows
that the south-eastern part of Brussels (along the Brussels–Namur
axis) faces an increasing number of households attracted by green
amenities and lower land prices than in the north. Strong increases
are also observed in the southern part of Belgium and are the result
of lower housing prices in Belgium than in Luxembourg. For some
of these peripheral communes, the quality of public transport (i.e.
frequency, density of stops, etc.) is generally low and therefore
more flexible modes (e.g. car) are preferred for activity-related
trips. This is confirmed by results obtained by Hubert and Toint
(2002), who show that households established in outskirts have
more vehicles than those living in agglomerations. Also most of
people living in the surrounding countryside use their car to reach
an agglomeration. Another study performed on population census
data (2001) gives similar results, showing that the car use for activ-
ity-related trips reaches more than 70% in some rural communes
(Verhetsel et al., 2007).
As a result of this periurban movement, the increasing conges-
tion on roads threatens the competitivity of the main urban places
50 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53
Fig. 9. Population growth (%) in Belgium between 1990 and 2005 (source: FPS Economy, 2007a).
and urgent solutions are needed, such as intermodality or adapted
pricing policies. Further, a better management of activity and
transport systems could be of great help to solve the mobility prob-
lems. Among others, accessibility indicators coupled with the use
of GIS could be useful to direct decisions taken by planners and
politicians as regards the land-use and transport systems. For in-
stance, accessibility patterns such as those analysed in Figs. 7
and 8 are useful tools to conduct development of residential devel-
opments or industrial and business park areas, especially if the
study is projected at the smallest scale and includes more trans-
portation modes.
6. Conclusion
This paper focuses on the measurement of accessibility and lim-
its the application to car accessibility and its spatial variation with-
in Belgium. Two types of destinations are considered (cities and
railway stations) as well as two types of time periods (peak and
off-peak).
The situation in Belgium is far from being spatially equitable
and some areas are more favoured than others. Some findings
are not surprising as they have often been observed: large cities
are more accessible than smaller ones. Through the mapping of
the travel time from each municipality to the closest centre with
certain levels of facilities, it becomes apparent that congestion
increases spatial divergence and creates enclaves which are far
less accessible during peak hours. In less urbanised areas, total
travel times to cities often become very large during peak hours,
due to additive effects. This is quite interesting in a country like
Belgium where households – in accordance with urban econom-
ics – appreciate green amenities and locate in places where
housing prices are lower, i.e. increasingly further away from city
centres. Recent urbanisation developments (see e.g. Anas et al.,
1998 or Caruso, 2002) represented here by population growth,
occur in locations where accessibility is smaller. The develop-
ments seem to ignore congestion effects on accessibility: strong
growth is encountered in locations suffering from dramatic in-
crease in travel time due to congestion. The developments also
show that urban sprawl is still going on and further increases
congestion problems and travel times to the urban centres. These
results also confirm how the recent increase in mobility has not
reduced accessibility differentials (see e.g. Bretagnolle et al.,
2002).
The empirical results reveal a spatial repercussion of the rela-
tionship between transportation, residential and economic devel-
opments. Continuous peri-urbanisation of dwellings (and jobs)
creates a large proportion of the burden of congestion for firms
and for households (in Belgium almost all regions are affected
by congestion) and spreads the problems associated with conges-
tion and pollution in the suburbs. Conclusions underscored here
are not only valid at a national but also at the local level (see
Vandenbulcke et al., 2007). This paper shows the congestion ef-
fects on the local accessibility of stations. These are calculated
using the same method: travel time to the nearest station.
Besides the mobility problems (mainly caused by commuters
living in the surrounding suburbs), the increasing traffic associ-
ated with urban sprawl is the root of several environmental
and health problems. Thus, the location problems associated with
economic activities as well as with personal mobility are ques-
tions that require joint treatment by policy makers and that need
to be addressed in order to achieve a more sustainable develop-
ment of land-use and transport infrastructures. Within this
framework, accessibility indicators are easy to compute, can be
based on readily available data, and provide useful insight in
the consequences of spatial developments. Indeed, they could
play a key role by avoiding locations of new developments in
 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53 51

poorly served areas and, consequently, strong dependency on the Appendix B

car. Supported by accessibility measurements, planners could
then encourage land-use planning that promotes the shift to Travel time to the closest large Belgian town: percentage of
other transportation modes than car, e.g. ‘zero-carbon’ modes communes, population and surface area in each travel time band.
(i.e. walking and cycling) or public transport (Chapman, 2007).
Here again, accessibility indicators are useful to examine the po- Time Off-peak hours Peak hours
tential impacts of developments on the travel times to transport (min)
nodes such as railway stations. BSUs Population Surface BSUs Population Surface
The choice of ‘‘the” accessibility indicator is not straightfor- (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
ward and a great challenge is hence to find the right balance be-
0–5 10.0 28.3 10.8 3.5 17.4 5.3
tween several criteria such as interpretability, communicability
6–10 30.0 35.7 25.9 11.2 15.5 9.6
and operationalisation, selection of destination, hierarchy of des-
11–15 28.6 23.4 25.0 19.7 20.7 17.0
tinations, travel behaviour (oversimplified in our case), spatial
16–20 14.3 7.0 14.0 23.5 21.8 20.9
data aggregation, etc. A major problem is that all destinations
21–25 6.4 3.2 8.7 16.9 12.9 16.4
are equally desirable, regardless of the type of activity. As a re-
26–30 4.4 1.1 5.9 10.8 6.3 11.0
sult, it does not fully reflect human behaviour because a more
>30 6.2 1.3 9.8 14.4 5.4 19.8
remote destination could be preferred to the closest destination
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
(e.g. an individual could prefer to travel to a town which is not
the closest, simply because of the number of facilities it offers).
For future applications aiming at synthesising accessibility at a
national scale, the use of potential measures – and particularly
the ‘‘modified potential formula” recommended by Geertman Appendix C
and Ritsema van Eck (1995) – could be of great help. Such mea-
sures are still relatively easy to interpret by non-specialists and Travel time to the closest Belgian railway station: percentage of
require a modest amount of data. Furthermore, the distance de- communes, population and surface area in each travel time band.
cay functions used in potential measures have the advantage of
incorporating assumptions on individual’s perceptions of trans- Time Off-peak hours Peak hours
port (Geurs and van Wee, 2004). The fact that potential mea- (min)
sures account for the attractiveness of destinations (e.g. BSUs Population Surface BSUs Population Surface
considering the population that lives in each city) is also more (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
relevant than assuming that individuals travel to the closest 0–5 3.2 16.5 3.2 1.2 6.1 1.2
facility. 6–10 21.8 37.6 18.9 9.6 27.9 9.3
11–15 37.0 28.6 32.2 23.9 28.5 21.6
Acknowledgements 16–20 21.6 11.0 21.6 30.7 20.4 27.3
21–25 9.1 3.6 11.7 19.6 9.6 18.7
This research was made possible by the Belgian Federal Scien- >25 7.3 2.6 12.4 14.9 7.4 21.8
tific Policy (Contracts AP/10/02A and AP/01/02B) and the Federal Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Public Service ‘‘Mobility and Transport” (Contract ‘‘Accessibility
Indicators”). We are grateful for their support as well as to the
users committee. We also thank the anonymous referees for their
useful comments and their guidance.
Appendix D

Appendix A Comparison of the travel time to the closest large Belgian town
during peak and off-peak hours.
Network of Belgian cities, railways and motorways.
70
Travel time during peak hours (minutes)

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Travel time during off-peak hours (minutes)
52 G. Vandenbulcke et al. / Journal of Transport Geography 17 (2009) 39–53
Appendix E
Comparison of the travel time to the closest railway station dur-
ing peak and off-peak hours.
70
60
50
Travel time during
peak hours
40
(minutes)
30
20
10
0 Universitaires de Namur, Namur.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Travel time during off-peak hours (minutes)
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