Public Transport Accessibility Levels—Christchurch, New Zealand

Abley Transportation Consultants

Christchurch is a large city located in the South Island of New Zealand. It has a population of about 300,000. This map shows the spatial variation in Public Transport Accessiblity Levels (PTAL) within the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. PTAL is a measure of the accessibility to the public transport network.

This project implemented the PTAL methodology published by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (1992) and since adopted by Transport for London (TfL). The model uses bus stop locations, bus routes, bus timetables, bus reliability, walking speed, and a very detailed walking network model in order to calculate the PTAL score. PTAL values were calculated across the entire city based on a 100-by-100-meter grid within the ArcGIS Desktop environment using ArcGIS Network Analyst 9.3 and Python scripting. The PTAL results were then draped over a digital elevation model of Christchurch City using ArcGIS Explorer 900 before the legend was added and a final tidy up was performed using Adobe Photoshop.

Courtesy of Abley Transportation Consultants, Christchurch City Council (2008).

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