Measuring Accessibility to Public Utilities using Territorial Modeling of Transportation Systems: the Case of Fez, Morocco

This research examines the importance of accessibility indicator in order to measure the degree of justice in distributing public utilities, and to evaluate the quality of the public transportation system by studying the case of Fez city. To measure accessibility, this paper uses descriptive, analytical and cartographic methods, in addition to transport models provided by Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to analyze both location and time dimensions. To do so, it produces isochronous maps that explain the arrival possibilities to different public utilities. The results show that the degree of accessibility varies according to the kind of public services provided and its localizations. Moreover, it seems that people living in suburbs find many difficulties to arrive to their destinations due to the location of those services and the quality of the public transport in the city of Fez. Consequently, the research recommends the necessity to combine between the process of urban and public transport planification. It also proposes applying Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in both planification and decision making.