How data validity and granularity affect jobs accessibility: A case study from the Czech Republic

Abstract Potential accessibility is a commonly used tool for estimating the impact of changes in land-use and transport infrastructure. The accessibility is derived from a spatial interaction model and two components are crucial for its calculation: land-use and transport. While data relating to the transport component are often well available with a good validity, data representing the land-use component are more challenging. Using a selected case study area from the Czech Republic, the aim of this paper is to explore the sensitivity of the job-related accessibility calculation to different data on the land-use component, in order to explore and possibly overcome these problems with validity. Two different datasets were compared: valid jobs data based on available population and commuting data from the Census of the Czech Statistical Office with very coarse aggregation, and land-use data from the Urban Atlas with low validity of what is measured but very fine spatial aggregation. The analysis of the maps reveals clear spatial patterns and suggests some limitations when using alternative data. The comparisons based on the Urban Atlas data at distinct levels of aggregation reveal problems in some areas of the hinterland of Prague and support the need for more detailed data in these areas and specific types of analysis that may be sensitive to this type of error.