Assessing Sustainable Development Goals: a transferable approach using contour accessibility measures at the example of Berlin and Mexico City

Abstract

This study uses accessibility measures to assess the quality of infrastructure supply (schools, parks, public transport stops in the regarded cases) and the performance of the transportation system in urban areas, based on objective, quantitative values. Within the scope of this work the methodology is applied to the city of Berlin and Mexico City as examples. Fine-grained data on the level of single households and the positions of single activity locations is used as well as a detailed road network representation and a description of public transport offers. The results show that accessibility measures are valuable input parameters for urban planning activities by showing under-supply of travel options and of important facilities on a highly disaggregated level. Furthermore, the outcomes demonstrate that the applied method is feasible to benchmark the accessibility of urban areas in regard to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) formulated by UNHABITAT.