A GIS toolkit for measuring and mapping space-time accessibility from a place-based perspective

This article introduces a novel geographical information system toolkit for measuring and mapping the accessibility of individuals to services. The toolkit contributes to earlier implementations by combining aspects of both place-based and person-based accessibility measures. To this end, place-based accessibility measures are derived from a person-based framework by considering space-time prisms that are centred at service facilities rather than individual anchor points. The implementation is also innovative by explicitly accounting for the opening hours of service delivery in its accessibility measurement. In addition, the toolkit is aimed to be user-friendly and to generate insightful and comprehensible results for non-technically oriented users, which is illustrated in a brief case study about library accessibility in Ghent (Belgium).