Services provided by public facilities are essential to people's lives and are closely associated with human mobility. Traditionally, public facility access characteristics, such as accessibility, equity issues and service areas, are investigated mainly based on static data (census data, travel surveys and particular records, such as medical records). Currently, the advent of big data offers an unprecedented opportunity to obtain large-scale human mobility data, which can be used to study the characteristics of public facilities from the spatial interaction perspective. Intuitively, spatial interaction characteristics and service areas of different types and sizes of public facilities are different, but how different remains an open question, so we, in turn, examine this question. Based on spatial interaction, we classify public facilities and explore the differences in facilities. In the research, based on spatial interaction extracted from taxi data, we introduce an unsupervised classification method to classify 78 hospitals in 6 districts of Beijing, and the results better reflect the type of hospital. The findings are of great significance for optimizing the spatial configuration of medical facilities or other types of public facilities, allocating public resources reasonably and relieving traffic pressure.

Abdominal aortic aneurysms are the third leading cause of sudden death in men 60 years and over. AAAneurysm Outreach provides free screenings to residents of Louisiana and beyond. Service areas were calculated for each AAAneurysm Outreach screening event location and stroke center. Data provided by the 2010 U.S. Census, the American Community Survey, and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System were used to describe demographics of the underserved populations and to identify high-risk areas for targeted interventions. Twenty-five percent of age-eligible Louisianans reside outside optimal drive-time-to-screening-event zones but within spatially clustered areas of increased prevalence rates. The maximum drive-time-to-treatment zones excluded 1,395 residents 65 years and over from timely access to emergency medical care. Results revealed limitations in the geographic breadth of the screening program and small disparities in accessibility to emergency healthcare.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / A presente dissertaÃÃo trata da proposiÃÃo de diretrizes para a melhoria do setor serviÃo em HabitaÃÃes de Interesse Social (HIS) tendo-se por base a anÃlise quantitativa e qualitativa de autoconstruÃÃes. Està em andamento, na atualidade, uma mudanÃa na lÃgica de concepÃÃo de novos produtos, na qual as informaÃÃes de clientes em potencial tÃm sido mais amplamente consideradas. No Ãmbito da arquitetura e construÃÃo, sobretudo com a participaÃÃo ativa da iniciativa privada na produÃÃo de HIS, tem-se dado uma maior importÃncia para a consideraÃÃo das necessidades dos futuros usuÃrios na etapa de planejamento e projeto de novas edificaÃÃes. Um tipo de instrumento utilizado para a aferiÃÃo da adequabilidade do espaÃo construÃdo e a satisfaÃÃo dos usuÃrios consiste na AvaliaÃÃo de PÃs-OcupaÃÃo (APO). Pesquisas que relatam os resultados deste tipo de aferiÃÃo, no entanto, tÃm apontado para a insatisfaÃÃo dos usuÃrios com relaÃÃo ao setor serviÃo em HIS. Objetivando propor diretrizes projetuais para este setor, optou-se, assim, por analisar o setor serviÃo em habitaÃÃes autoconstruÃdas como forma de obter informaÃÃes de clientes em potencial para este segmento do mercado imobiliÃrio. Estabeleceram-se duas etapas complementares de coleta e anÃlise de dados: a primeira, quantitativa, e a segunda, qualitativa. O setor serviÃo foi analisado em um total de 80 habitaÃÃes autoconstruÃdas atravÃs de levantamento fÃsico, registro fotogrÃfico e realizaÃÃo de entrevistas com os moradores. O levantamento dos dados permitiu uma anÃlise quantitativa, com base em indicadores tÃcnicos, e qualitativa, com base em entrevistas. Ao final, foi feito um estudo comparativo de todas estas informaÃÃes com diretrizes mÃnimas para o setor serviÃo definidas pela literatura, de forma a validÃ-las e ampliÃ-las. Entende-se que a principal contribuiÃÃo da presente pesquisa consiste na melhoria dos espaÃos de HIS com base em informaÃÃes de clientes em potencial, agregando, assim, valor ao produto final: a edificaÃÃo. / This dissertation deals with the proposition of guidelines for the improvement of the service area in social housing and was based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of self-built houses. Currently, the design logic of new products has been changing, and the potential customerâs information have been more widely considered. In the building and construction field, especially because of the growth ofthe private sector participation in the production social housing, Ithas been given greater importance to the consideration of the future usersâ needs at the stage of planning and designing new buildings. One type of instrument used to measure the suitability of the building and the userâs satisfaction is the Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE). Surveys report that the results of this type of measurement, however, have pointed to the usersâ dissatisfaction in the regard of theservice area in social housing. This research aims to propose design guidelines for this sector, so it has been decided to analyzeof the service areain self-built housing, considering that It would be possible to generate information about potential customers in social housing. Two complementary stages of data collection and analysis were settled: the first one, quantitative, and the second one, qualitative. The service area was analyzed in a total of 80 self-built dwellings through physical survey, photographic records and interviews with residents. The survey data allowed a quantitative analysis, based on technical indicators, and a qualitativeanalysis, based on the interviews. Finally, a comparative study was made of all this information opposed to guidelines for the service area defined in the literature in order to validate them and enlarge them as well. It is understood that the main contribution of this research is the improvementsocial housing environments based on potential customersâinformation, adding value to the final product: the building.

Cycling to school is one way of minimising the negative environmental effects of car use, on the one hand, and increasing children’s exercise on the other. Cycling can also be challenging in winter as bicycle paths need keep a certain standard to be cyclable (e.g. cleared of snow). An assumption is made that cycling in winter can affect the accessibility as less maintained roads will not be as cyclable. This study looks at the case of Umeå, in northern Sweden that has a long winter season and have prioritized bicycle paths in terms of maintenance. Through service area analysis in ArcGIS software, accessibility in terms of travel time is measured to the closest primary and lower secondary school in 10-minute intervals and in two seasonal scenarios. By applying soft restrictions and speed differences, the priority in the bicycle network is considered in the winter scenario. The number of children between 7 – 15 years who live within each service area is also calculated. The results show that 98 % of children in the study area can cycle to their closest school regardless of education level or season. Slight seasonal differences were found but are not significant. This is positive in terms of children’s general accessibility to school by bicycle but also in the potential possibilities for children to cycle to school all year round. The challenge now lies primarily in the individual components of accessibility and whether children are authorised to cycle by their parents/guardians.

This thesis delves into the manifestations of transport poverty and time poverty in the Greater Reykjavík area, highlighting the accessibility of essential healthcare, educational, and grocery services through various transport modes - driving, public transit, cycling, and walking. Utilizing a service area analysis with network datasets in ArcGIS Pro, the study indicates some disparities in travel times experienced by different demographic groups, with a particular emphasis on the university-eligible population. The results reveal a generally high level of accessibility across the majority of the population. Driving and cycling demonstrate the greatest coverage, while public transit and walking pose significant accessibility challenges. Notably, when considering modes other than driving, universities emerge as the hardest facilities to access, leading to a substantial portion of university-eligible being the most likely to grapple with transport poverty. The findings underscore the urgency to better accommodate university students, delve deeper into disparities experienced by more vulnerable groups, such as women and foreign-born residents. Moreover, this hopefully paves the way for a more comprehensive understanding of transport and time poverty in Greater Reykjavík, ultimately aiming to guide the creation of a more accessible, equitable, and sustainable urban environment for all residents.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere and protect the environment, Swedish cities are heavily invested in sustainable development by developing pedestrian roads and intensifying public transport. Their goal is to make the population less dependent on cars by facilitating accessibility to transit transport. The urban area of ​​Umeå (Sweden), which is experiencing an annual increasing of it population due to urban development, includes 244 km of pedestrian or bike routes and an intensified bus network. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the walking accessibility of the population at bus stops and to analyze the socio-economic relationship. The use of GIS tools allowed to calculate the proportion of the population and the houses around the bus stop, the average distance accessibility. The use of 3D allowed the observation of access constraints related to the topography and to calculate the slope. The use of the multiple regression model has analyzed the relationship between the shortest accessibility distance and the socio-economic factors that are the income, gender and age. The results show that the average distance of access to the bus stop is 186m. 99.2% of the population lives within 800m from the bus stops. The results of the regression showed that income is the main factor that pushes people to take the bus and live in certain types of housing. The observation of the 3d map and the calculation of the slope made it possible to know the neighborhoods established in the hill and whose residents are susceptible to spend more energy than the other inhabitant living on flat ground. The results mean that most people living in the urban area of ​​Umeå have good access to the bus stop whatever the social group, the level of income and the type of housing.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Food access is a dimension of food security that many struggle with even in high- income countries, which is a contributing factor to chronic diet-related disease. Inequalities in economic access to food has been addressed in public policy for several decades, but spatial access to food has only been seriously studied and addressed by policy for the past twenty-five years. After the food desert metaphor emerged, it was promptly accepted as a standard measure of food access for governments and a basis for policies created to address inequalities. Conceptual criticisms and methodological limitations of the metaphor have led the study of spatial access to food towards newer methods that measure food access more realistically and assist in the development and assessment of intervention strategies to inform policy decisions. This thesis describes the history of the food desert metaphor from its emergence until its adoption in US public policy, the conceptual criticisms and methodological limitations that surround it, and offers an analysis that measures the impact of change in the availability of public transportation on spatial access to food for various population subgroups that are more at risk of food insecurity in Marion County, Indiana. Results demonstrate that policies and plans designed without consideration for food access have an impact on it nevertheless, and that policymakers and planners can leverage such strategies to better coordinate efforts across government to reduce inequalities in spatial access to food and food insecurity overall.

The United Nations established Sustainable Development Goal 6, universal access to safely managed drinking water and sanitation service, as a global goal for 2030. In rural areas, access lags significantly and progress is rarely examined concurrently between developed and developing nations. Therefore, this dissertation focuses on rural water system challenges in a developed nation, the US, and a developing nation, Guatemala. In the US, approximately 250 million Americans receive drinking water from community water systems (CWSs), theoretically safeguarded by the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). There is mounting evidence that racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities persist in US drinking water access and quality, but studies are limited by the exclusion of very small CWSs and a large geographic unit of analysis. A novel geospatial methodology was created to delineate system service areas at the zip code scale in Virginia and assess the influence of demographic characteristics on compliance with the SDWA from 2006 to 2016. Results reveal that monitoring and reporting violations are concentrated in private, rural systems that serve fewer than 500 people, while health-based violations were more likely in non-white communities, specifically those with higher proportions of Black, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islanders. This study was completed in parallel with a household sampling campaign in rural San Rafael Las Flores, Guatemala. In Guatemala, no public access to water system compliance or quality information currently exists. With growing investment in mining industries and recognized naturally occurring arsenic in volcanic geology, citizens are eager for drinking water information. Survey results highlighted dissatisfaction with and distrust in most tap water sources. Consequently, residents regularly buy bottled water or collect water from untreated natural springs. Water quality results indicated that tap water from the central drinking water treatment plant contained higher levels of arsenic and other contaminants, when compared to most other sources. Though the settings are quite different, parallel investigation of rural drinking water system challenges in the US and Guatemala reveal common challenges and lessons. Moving forward, all nations would benefit from standard monitoring of drinking water access, quality, and compliance that allowed for intersectional investigations of environmental health inequities. / Doctor of Philosophy / In 2015, the United Nations established Sustainable Development Goal 6 which establishes safely managed drinking water and sanitation service for all as a global goal. Access to safe drinking water lags significantly in rural areas and can be complicated by intersecting social determinants of health (e.g. race, wealth). Rarely is progress in developed and developing nations examined concurrently, hindering an understanding of commonalities and an exchange of lessons. To this end, my dissertation focuses on rural water system challenges in a developed nation, the United States, and a developing nation, Guatemala. In the US, more than 250 million Americans receive in-home drinking water from one of 53,000 community water systems, with quality theoretically protected by the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Recent failures, such as the lead crisis in Flint, MI, have cast doubt on the equity and reliability of these utilities, especially in underserved areas. How can we ensure that all US communities receive equal protections under the Safe Drinking Water Act? Using publicly available data and geography, this work estimated service areas to determine whether SDWA violations related to surrounding community socio-demographics and/or system design. Results reveal that monitoring and reporting violations are significantly concentrated in private, rural systems that serve fewer than 500 people, while health-based violations were more likely in non-white communities, specifically those with higher proportions of Black, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islanders. These findings illustrate potential issues of environmental justice within VA and advocate for future research to investigate potential structural causes. This work was completed in tandem with a household sampling campaign in rural San Rafael Las Flores, Guatemala. In Guatemala, there is currently no public access to water system compliance or quality information. With recognized naturally occurring carcinogenic elements in Guatemala's volcanic geology, such as arsenic, and heightened investment in extractive industries such as mining, that can compromise source water quality, citizens are eager for drinking water quality data. Survey results documented widespread dissatisfaction with and distrust in tap water quality. As a consequence, residents regularly buy bottled water or collect water from natural springs. Water quality results showed that tap water sourced from the central drinking water treatment plant contained significantly higher levels of arsenic and other contaminants when compared to most other tap sources. Community participation in long-term water monitoring and infrastructure decisions may help build trust in water sources. Though the regulatory, economic, and cultural settings are quite different, parallel investigation of rural drinking water system challenges in the US and Guatemala reveal common challenges and lessons. Moving forward, high, middle, and low-income nations all benefit from standard monitoring of drinking water access, quality, and compliance that allows for intersectional investigations of environmental health inequities.

Bostadsbristen för unga växer i takt med att fler byggherrar avstår från att bygga små lägenheter, då rådande lagar gör det svårt att på ett gynnsamt sätt producera kostnads- och yteffektiva bostäder. Bostäder har i dag krav på sig från kommuner och beställare att uppfylla svensk standard. Däri har handikapporganisationer drivit fram tillgänglighetskrav som medför att alla nyproducerade bostäder är tillgänglighetsanpassade. Genom att ifrågasätta svensk funktionshinderspolitik i samband med bostadsbyggande har detta examensarbete som mål att hitta lösningar för att öka nyproduktionen av små bostäder. Granskningen resulterade i ett förslag till en ny standard för ungdoms- och studentbostäder vilken underlättar vid projektering av mindre enskilda bostadslägenheter. / The housing shortage for young people is growing as more developers refrain from building small houses since current laws make it difficult to favorably produce space-efficient buildings. Buildings must, as requirements from municipalities and clients, achieve the Swedish Standard. A standard where disability organizations have driven the availability requirements that entail that all new buildings are adapted for accessibility. By questioning the Swedish disability policy related to the building trade this thesis aims to find solutions to increase the new constructions of small apartments. The result became a proposal to a new standard for youths and students apartments, simplifying the planning of small apartments.

<p>This study examines the extent to which transit may be able to assist with the upward mobility of low-income groups, specifically those making less than a living wage. Previous studies relating to job accessibility have examined the feasibility of reaching jobs using various modes of transportation, and some have factored educational requirements into the attainability of those jobs. However, no studies thus far have attempted to determine transit accessibility to jobs that can facilitate and enable upward mobility for low-income households. Employment data relevant to the labor force of Marion County, Indiana, is used to determine the earnings (mainly wages or salaries) associated with occupations, and which occupations require no more than a high school education. Those occupations are then paired with the various industries they are found in, and the earnings belonging to the industry’s highest-earning occupation is associated with that industry. The median household incomes of low-income Census block groups (CBGs) are then compared to the earnings of each transit-accessible industry to evaluate whether those earnings are large enough to induce upward mobility for those living in the CBGs. Bus routes and bus stops for the local transit system (IndyGo) along with workplace locations are mapped in ArcGIS to assess the low-income population’s accessibility to workplaces belonging to a select group of industries. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Bus routes that serve both downtown Indianapolis and low-income CBGs were found to provide people living in those CBGs with access to some of the most lucrative jobs, particularly those found in the <i>Finance and Insurance</i> industries. Over half of Indianapolis’ transit-accessible industries have earnings amounts large enough to induce upward mobility for those living in all the low-income CBGs; this corresponds to 6,748 unique workplaces. Findings from this study suggest that low-income people would benefit from having access to transit routes that serve downtowns and other areas with high concentrations of white-collar jobs. Low-income Indianapolis residents informed of this study’s results may be motivated to explore the possibilities for better-paying jobs accessible to them by transit. Furthermore, methods used in this study can help in ranking different transit routes for accessibility to workplaces conducive to upward mobility. The rankings can be updated periodically to assist in addressing equity goals for transit planning.</p>