Overview
The majority of existing studies addressing the issue whether the supply of transport infrastructure equals the demand of transport in terms of public transport services is limited to important transport hubs. However, an increasing number of working places in these days is located away from urban city centers. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the exact amount of time necessary employed people have to undergo on their way to work. Current measures of commuting quality are either subjective or locally less specific as they do not reflect demand levels on real origin-destination routes.
The study aims at establishing a systematic, objective and complete overview of the accessibility working places across Germany in peak hours by car and public transport. This exercise is possible since the institute for Employment Market Research (IAB) of the Federal Employment Agency for the first time has geo-referenced all job and home addresses of registered employees.
With this exercise, the study pursues the following main objectives:
- create a comprehensive and objective atlas of regional accessibility across Germany;
- establish a monitor of public transport quality for commuting by regions.
These results then should help making mobility surveys more objective and support demand-related infrastructure planning.
The analysis is based on square kilometre cells which determine the starting point from which the calculation in terms of time necessary to go to work will start. Transport times are then computed using standard traffic planning software. The results published as accessibility maps and public transport quality indicators.