Accessibility Of Key Services

The Department for Transport has released statistics covering the core accessibility indicators for 2009. The measures show the accessibility of 8 key services to the population that uses them. The 8 key indicators are food stores, primary and secondary schools, further education, GPs and hospitals, town centres and employment centres. They give estimations of the proportion of the population that can access them within reasonable time limits by public transport/walking, cycle and car. The indicators take three forms: destination, travel time and origin.

The key findings are given at national and regional level. At the national level, on destination indicators which look at the proportion of the local population with access to the services, the highest proportion of the population able to access key services by public transport/walking in a reasonable time was 83% for employment centres and the lowest was for hospitals at 34%. Cars give highest level of overall access to all services at 76% and cycle the lowest at 50%, public transport/walking gave 57% but also gave the widest variation from 34% for hospitals to 83% for employment centres.

There are variations in accessibility to services in urban and rural areas. The greatest variations were for hospitals and town centres with a 16% difference between urban and rural areas. The least was for primary schools with only a 3% difference. In urban areas 60% of the population could easily access the 8 key services by public transport or walking but in rural areas it was only 48%.

In terms of travel time indicators the average time to travel to all key services was 5 minutes by car, 15 minutes by public transport/walking and 17 minutes by cycle. The average minimum time to travel to the nearest service by public transport/walking was lowest for primary schools and food stores at 9 minutes and highest for hospitals at an average of 30 minutes. By cycling the average time was lowest for primary schools at 5 minutes and highest for hospitals at 52 minutes. By car the average minumum time for all services was 5 minutes.

The survey also loooked at the choice of key services available to local populations. These are called the origin indicators. Thirty per cent of local communities (LSOA level) had access to more than one hospital by public transport or walking and 25% had access to more than one town centre. Over 90% had access by public transport or walking to employment centres of over 5,000 jobs within reasonable time.

At the regional level, there was little difference in access to services between Government Office regions with the exception of London. Overall access to the 8 key services by all modes was greatest in London with 64% for public transport/walking, 59% cycling and 77% by car and the East of England was lowest by public transport/walking with 54% and by cycling with 46%. Access by car was similar in all regions at 75-78%. The lowest average minimum travel time by public transport/walking was in London at 10 minutes and highest in the South West at 21 minutes and 15 minutes nationally. Cycling lowest travel time was in London at 6 minutes and highest in the East of England at 26 minutes and 17 minutes nationally. By car the average minumum travel time was 6-7 minutes in all regions. The greatest level of choice of services was in London the lowest in the South West, East of England and the East Midlands.