Assessing spatiotemporal accessibility for educational services: A case study of Delhi

ABSTRACT

Education is one of the crucial aspects of an individual’s life, contributing to economic and
social well-being. Lack of adequate access to educational services for children can affect their
overall well-being. Further, an inadequate supply of educational opportunities can reinforce
social inequalities. This research aims to develop a conceptual framework to measure
accessibility for educational services in Delhi. We aim to evaluate spatial and social equity from
urban and transportation planning perspectives for access to educational services. The Gini index
will be used to assess the distribution of educational accessibility and quantify the spatial
inequity. Social inequity is will be quantified based on the mode-wise accessibility ratio for
educational services. A decision framework will be developed based on accessibility measures,
and policy measures are suggested to address the existing inequities. This study can help
planners and policymakers effectively prioritise the suggested measures to maximise the benefits
and address spatial and social inequities for access to educational services.

Keywords: Educational services; Accessibility; Spatial equity; Social equity; Delhi

1. Introduction

Education helps enhance skills, abilities, and knowledge and promotes social mobility (Haveman
& Smeeding, 2006). India has the world’s second-largest school system, after China. Recently,
under Sustainable Development Goal 4 by the United Nations, all the countries are directed to
ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for vulnerable children by
2030 and eliminate gender disparities in education (“Sustainable Development Goal 4,” 2020).
Primary education is the fundamental right in nearly 135 countries; however, the lack of
adequate access to educational services can make realising the fundamental right difficult.
Efficient allocation of educational resources in an urban area is of concern for researchers and
planners not only in the field of geography but also in transportation. India has achieved a 98%
enrolment rate in primary level education, but 11.1 million adolescents have not progressed to
secondary schools (UNESCO, 2016). One reason for the high number of dropouts is the lack of
spatial accessibility to educational services. Improving urban development with equitable
educational facilities can help in overcoming such issues (UNESCO, 2016). In this study, the
term accessibility is used to represent spatial accessibility. With limited studies focusing on
educational services from a transportation and urban planning perspective, more studies on
accessibility for educational services are needed. This study analyses the equitable distribution of
accessibility for schools in Delhi and proposed transportation and urban planning related policy
measures.

Accessibility is used to understand the impact of transportation on social exclusion and spatial
inequality (Fol & Gallez, 2014). Uneven distribution of transportation facilities combined with
spatial inequity in accessibility to services would lead to non-uniform urban development. Lack
of access to essential services (including educational services) is one of the significant reasons
for social isolation (Social Exclusion Unit, 2003) and can lead to difficulties in achieving social
justice (Farrington, 2007). Poor access to educational opportunities in a region can adversely
impact low-income families because the children of such families are likely to drop out in the
absence of adequate educational opportunities. In developing nations, a child from a low-income
family is seven times less likely to complete secondary education than a child from a wealthy
family (WIDE, 2019). This can further make it difficult for such children to participate in better
job opportunities and reinforce social inequalities in regions with poor educational opportunities.

This study is aimed to present an in-depth case study of schools in Delhi for educational
accessibility by utilising an extensive dataset of the mode-wise travel time matrix. The following
tasks are to be achieved in this study:
1. Use of a comprehensive mode-wise accessibility measure, which incorporates travel
time and transportation infrastructure component
2. To Evaluate the degree of spatial inequality of accessibility measure in Delhi and its
effect on i) Gender (Girls and Boys), ii) Type of educational service (Public and
Private Schools), and iii) Level of education provided (Primary and Secondary
Schools)
3. To Quantify the social inequity by assessing the gap between the accessibility
measures by different modes (Public and Private modes)
4. To Develop a framework to recommend viable measures to help reduce the spatial
and social inequities for educational accessibility.

2. Literature review

Hansen (1959) was the first to propose the concept of spatial accessibility and defined it as “the
potential of opportunities for interaction.” There is no consistent definition and formulation of
accessibility. Regardless of various definitions, accessibility refers to the interaction between
land use and transport systems. Accessibility measure considers the spatial distribution of
potential destinations/services, the ease of reaching each destination/service, and the type and
value of attractiveness of destination/services (Vandenbulcke, Steenberghen, & Thomas, 2009).
The land use component describes the spatial distribution of the services (Geurs & Ritsema van
Eck, 2001). Transportation planning has started directing effective policies targeting deprived
areas and communities to address social concerns (Sanchez, 2008). Aggregate level transport
access indicators are an important contributor to urban quality of life and overall holistic
development (Patil & Sharma, 2021). Change in accessibility measures can be used to assess the
development in transportation infrastructure (Gutiérrez, Condeço-Melhorado, López, & Monzón,
2011). Stępniak and Rosik (2016) analysed the influence of transportation investment and
infrastructure on accessibility in Poland. They concluded transport infrastructure as one of the
main components of accessibility, influencing the level and spatial pattern of accessibility.
Sharma & Patil (2021) suggested that in addition to travel time, incorporating transportation
infrastructure such as transit stops (a supply and connectivity component) improves the
accessibility representation. A similar definition and formulation of accessibility is adopted in
this paper.

Access to educational services can be divided into four broad aspects: 1) spatial/geographical
accessibility, which relates to transportation and travel impedance between service and user, 2)
affordability, which relates to cost (The Commonwealth Education Hub, 2016), 3) acceptability,

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which relates to the quality and satisfaction of the service (Lewin, 2015), and 4) appropriateness,
which relates to the need of user (Limaye, 2016). The appropriateness aspect of access to
educational services is an important part for students with disabilities (Limaye, 2016), which
need specific facilities (like ramps as part of infrastructure; braille, closed captioning, inclusive
classrooms as the part of the curriculum) to access schools and classrooms. But for the current
study, the focus is to understand the spatial accessibility for educational services. Researchers
suggest that spatial accessibility to services helps understand spatial and social inequities issue in
an urban area.

Several studies found that students with a disadvantaged background in terms of low parental
education and income are more likely to drop out of school. As discussed in the introduction
section, the lack of adequate educational opportunities can reinforce social inequity and
negatively impact disadvantaged families. Low-income families could not use the school choice
policy, as they could not afford to travel by car (André-Bechely, 2007), making them deprived of
educational opportunities. On the other hand, children from privileged families tend to make
better school choices, have higher mobility, and overcome travel barriers (Andersson, Malmberg,
& Östh, 2012). Spatial equity is equal access to services and can be measured in terms of
distance (Kinman, 1999; Ogryczak, 2000; E. Talen & Anselin, 1998). Dickerson & McIntosh
(2013) found that less distance or higher spatial accessibility for school increases the chances for
post-compulsory education. Reduced travel time to upper secondary schools positively affects
graduation propensity (see (Falch, Lujala, & StrØm, 2013)). There exists a high association
between educational opportunities and social mobility (Logan, Oakley, & Stowell, 2008; Lucas,
2001). The non-uniform spread of educational accessibility can stimulate social disparities and
sharpen social and spatial inequalities (Xu, Song, & Liu, 2018). Thus, spatial accessibility can
help understand the uneven distribution of educational services and provide appropriate links
between accessibility and spatial and social inequities in an urban area.

Equity is vital in transportation planning and can be associated with the distribution of
transportation benefits and costs (Litman, 2018). For an urban planner, equitable distribution of
public facilities is paramount. Insights from the literature suggest that researchers are using
accessibility measures as a tool to quantify the spatial equity for urban public facilities (Tsou,
Hung, & Chang, 2005). Researchers recommend that accessibility is one of the ultimate goals of
transportation planners, but little attention has been given to equitable educational facilities from
the accessibility perspective. Moreno-Monroy, Lovelace, & Ramos (2018) used the concept of
accessibility to address public transport subsidies for students. Romanillos and García-Palomares
(2018) focussed on accessibility to primary education centres in Barcelona, London, Madrid, and
Rotterdam. The study concluded that public school accessibility was available for the vulnerable
population, but spatial imbalance existed for accessibility. However, if the changes in the urban
dynamics are in an undesirable pattern where spatial equity is unaddressed, it can further degrade
the social balance. Romanillos and García-Palomares (2018) said that many countries are
reducing their budget in public education because of economic decline, affecting the
underprivileged population and the quality of public schools. Such conditions can worsen the
existing social imbalance (Ashley, Duberley, Sommerlad, & Scholarios, 2015). Studies in the
context of the United States have evaluated the effect of budget cuts on public education due to
the Great Recession (Goldhaber, Strunk, Brown, & Knight, 2016; Knight, 2017; Knight &

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Strunk, 2016). Knight (2017) suggested that the budget cuts to public education because of the
Great Recession had a higher negative impact on high-poverty school districts.

In recent times, the measurement of job accessibility has received vast attention in the literature
(Boisjoly, Moreno-Monroy, & El-Geneidy, 2017; Cui, Boisjoly, El-Geneidy, & Levinson, 2019;
Deboosere & El-Geneidy, 2018; Karst T. Geurs & van Wee, 2004; Guzman & Oviedo, 2018;
Guzman, Oviedo, & Rivera, 2017). But research for educational services from a transportation
perspective primarily focused on the consequences of mode choice on socioeconomic indicators
(Moreno-Monroy, Lovelace, & Ramos, 2018). Asahi (2014), Dickerson and McIntosh (2013),
and Falch et al. (2013) analysed the impact of accessibility on school outcomes. Other studies,
such as Andersson et al. (2012); and Easton and Ferrari (2015), focussed on understanding the
change in the trip-making process for schools in developed nations. Because of this, it is
apparent that there is limited research related to accessibility to education services globally.
Hence, there is a need to understand educational service accessibility and assess its spatial and
social equity from a transportation/urban planning perspective.

3. Case study for schools in Delhi:

The data required for this study are to be collected from various sources as listed below:
 List of schools with enrolment statistics for the 2017-2018 academic year: National
University of Educational Planning and Administration (“School Report Cards”)
 Geocode schools on GIS platform: After collecting the name and address of all the
schools, and the coordinates are to be extracted from Google Map using a VBA code to
perform analysis on the GIS platform.
 Zone to zone travel time matrix: Bing Maps API and VBA are to be used to extract the
mode-wise zone to zone travel time
 Zonal demographic data: The population demographic data relevant for the study is the
student population to be obtained.

4. General Framework for the project:

Spatial accessibility for educational services helps understand spatial and social inequities
associated with educational services.
This is the tentative framework to estimate a mode-wise accessibility measure for educational
services in Delhi Region.
Five different impedance functions (broadly divided into two categories) are considered:
a) Continuous impedance function and
b) A dummy weighted impedance function based on different travel time threshold values.

The spatial inequity can be assessed by using the Lorenz curve and Gini index concept. Social
equity is to be quantified using the ratio of accessibility value by public transport to the
accessibility value by private mode. A decision framework is to be developed, suggesting
effective policy measures to address social and spatial inequities from a transport/urban planning
perspective.

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Accessibility for educational services by private mode and public transport are to be compared.
The accessibility measure for different types of schools is to be measured.
Spatial and social inequalities has to be measured.
By assessing spatial and social inequities, improvement measures are to be evaluated based on
three parameters:
i) Accessibility ratio
ii) Accessibility value by private mode, and
iii) Accessibility value by public transport.
The policymakers can enhance the educational opportunities, which generally lack satisfactory
accessibility by both modes, by developing educational opportunities in their close vicinity,
either developing new schools or by developing the existing educational infrastructure. The
suggested measures can be prioritised based on the student population to attain maximum
benefits by the policymakers and planners. Mapping the spatial distribution of accessibility for
educational services helps understand spatial and social equity, which are critical issues often
overlooked and ignored in the urban planning process.

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