Measures of Global vs. Local—Research on Accessibility of MTR Stations in Hong Kong

Abstract

Considerable quantitative research on space syntax has focused on the interaction between movement and accessibility. In this approach, the accumulation of travelling behaviours can be seen as the result of both cognition and the demands of people within an urban network. Accessibility creates opportunities for facilities and systems, such as a metro system, to generate and transmit human activity. This study on the relationship between patronage and accessibility of the catchment areas of 73 MTR stations in Hong Kong evaluated different methods of analysis. Specifically, it compared accessibility as described by the variables of ‘integration’ or ‘betweenness’ for three dimensions of distance, and it evaluated different statistical methods for representing the accessibility of station’s area as either the sum or the average of the total network around a station. This comparative analysis of the diverse variables of accessibility yielded the unexpected result that the accessibility of exits is more significant than the accessibility of catchment areas, with the latter result having been found in many studies. This finding raises the possibility of a new way of explaining accessibility when studying metro catchment areas: accessibility is the degree to which a station catches the urban structure with all of its exits, and this includes the locations of exits and the site choice for a station.