Taking the bus: incorporating public transport timetable data into health care accessibility modelling

This paper is concerned with geographical access to hospital services by public transport. By taking advantage of newly available public transport timetable data, a software tool is developed for the analysis of bus travel times under specified journey scenarios. The example of population access to Derriford Hospital in Devon, England, is used to illustrate the application of these methods, and the social and spatial pattern of accessibility by bus is explored. The analysis reveals substantial differences between access by public and private transport, and highlights the difficulty of combining conventional drive-time analysis with the discontinuous accessibility provided by public transport. There is a need for more attention to be paid to the incorporation of public transport in accessibility modelling.