A regional model of road accessibility in Mexico: Accessibility surfaces and robustness analysis

This paper introduces an empirical accessibility model for Mexico based on land transport infrastructure. The model assesses an attraction-accessibility measure derived from a gravity framework. The measure is estimated on a regional basis and can be interpreted as the market potential of a region. We introduce three versions of the model: the first measures the potential restricted to the domestic market, the second considers the external sector, and the third is essentially a regional accessibility index, which captures the domestic market potential at regional level. We carry out an exhaustive analysis to test the robustness of the accessibility model and find that its behaviour is robust with respect to several criteria. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.