Regional Employment Accessibility
Regional employment accessibility index is a composite index developed using spatial interaction models and travel times (typically output from a traffic assignment model). In contrast to jobs-to-workers ratio, that gives simple counts of number of jobs divided by number of workers within some travel time threshold, the employment accessibility index is a weighted combination of spatial competition to jobs and travel cost to jobs.
There are different types of regional employment accessibility indicators in this website. For instance, we may be interested to know how many jobs there are within some travel time threshold from a residential origin and the level of competition for those jobs from others in the labor pool in that or other residential origins within the same travel time threshold. On the other hand, employers may be interested to know how many workers there are within some travel time threshold from a job or employer location and the level of competition for those workers from other employers within the commuting shed or same travel time threshold.
When the mode of access between residential locations and job locations is assumed to be auto (ie, travel costs associated with automobiles are used in the accessibility measure), we will have the auto accessibility measures. On the other hand, when the mode of travel is assumed to be public transportation (ie, travel costs associated with public transportation are used in the accessibility measure), we will have the auto accessibility measures.
Destination Accessibility by Auto in the Six-county Metro Chicago Area
The map shows four quite distinct areas. Policies for enhancing economic opportunities may be quite different in each of the areas.
