Accessibility and potential mobility as a guide for policy action

This paper presents a framework to assess simultaneously the accessibility provided by a transport-land use system and the potential mobility provided by the transport system. This framework provides a novel approach to identify the transport problem in modern societies. The framework could serve as the basis for transportation planning and urban planning. In contrast to traditional approaches to transportation planning, the framework does not focus on the quality of the transportation network, but on the ultimate goal of a transport network: to enable people to participate in out-of-home activities. In contrast to the vast body of literature on accessibility measures, the approach provides a clear framework to determine when an intervention in the transport network is called for and when such an intervention is unlikely to deliver results.