accessibility

The ease with which a place may be reached. An area with high accessibility will generally have a well-developed transport network and be centrally located or at least at a route centre. Many economic activities, such as retailing, commerce, and industry, require high accessibility for their customers and raw materials.

Accessibility can be measured by an accessibility index or matrix. In this method, a topological (simplified) map of the transport network is produced and a table constructed to show the number of links necessary to get from one destination to another. The place with the fewest links has the lowest Shimbel index (highest accessibility). This method ignores all other factors, such as population density, distance, quality of link, and traffic flow. Another measure is the beta index.