Overall measure of accessibility of services - 2019
Updated 30 June 2022
Applies to England
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rural-transport-travel-and-accessibility-statistics/overall-measure-of-accessibility-of-services-2019--2
This document is part of the larger compendium publication the Statistical Digest of Rural England, a collection of rural statistics on a wide range of social and economic government policy areas.
The Statistical Digest of Rural England is an official statistics publication meaning these statistics have been produced to the high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
More information on the Official Statistics Code of Practice can be found on the Code of Practice web pages.
These statistics allow comparisons between the different rural and urban area classifications. The Rural-Urban Classification is used to distinguish rural and urban areas. The Classification defines areas as rural if they fall outside of settlements with more than 10,000 resident population.
More information on the Rural-Urban Classification can be found on the Rural-Urban Classification web pages.
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Defra statistics: rural
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1. Overall measure of accessibility of services
This measure of accessibility of services is determined by looking at average minimum travel times to key services, when travelling by either public transport and walking, or by car.
To get an assessment of service accessibility the average minimum travel time to the following nine types of service have been used:
- medium and large centres of employment (locations where over 500 people are employed across the businesses and services there, such that a range jobs are likely to be available)
- primary school
- secondary school
- further education
- doctors’ surgery
- hospital
- food store
- town centre
- post office (recent post office data is currently unavailable so these calculations are using 2016 data for post offices rather than 2019)
For each area an overall accessibility index has been calculated by indexing and weighting the minimum travel times to key services. Travel times were indexed and weighted in an attempt to take account of the frequency of use of each service. This means that infrequently used but distant services (such as a hospital) do not disproportionately affect the rating of an area (see notes for more details).
Accessibility to services (derived from minimum travel times) has been presented on maps based on this overall index for travelling by public transport and walking, and for travelling by car. Rural areas are shown in green and urban areas are shown in blue, the darker the area, the poorer the accessibility of services.
- When using public transport and walking rural areas generally have poorer accessibility to services based on minimum travel times than urban areas.
- Unsurprisingly, travelling by car generally reduces travel times to key services, but overall differences in relative travel times are similar to those experienced when using public transport and walking, and rural areas still tend to have poorer accessibility (in terms of minimum travel times), compared with urban areas.
2. Travel by Public Transport and Walking
When using public transport and walking rural areas generally have poorer accessibility to services based on minimum travel times than urban areas.
Rural areas tend to have poorer accessibility to services based on minimum travel times than urban areas when using public transport or walking.
- 50 per cent of the rural population are living in areas that have the poorest accessibility to services (lowest 10 per cent decile) based on minimum travel times, compared with 2 per cent of the urban population).
- 0.3 per cent of the rural population are living in areas that have the greatest accessibility to services (highest 10 per cent decile) based on minimum travel times, compared with 13 per cent of the urban population.
As might be expected, sparsely populated areas tend to have poorer accessibility of services based on minimum travel times when using public transport or walking:
- 9 per cent of the population living in urban city and town areas in a sparse setting have the poorest accessibility to services (lowest 10 per cent decile) services based on minimum travel times, compared with 3 per cent of the population living in urban city and town areas not in a sparse setting.
- 26 per cent of the population living in rural town and fringe areas in a sparse setting have the poorest accessibility to services (lowest 10 per cent decile) based on minimum travel times compared with 24 per cent of the population living in rural town and fringe areas not in a sparse setting.
- 96 per cent of the population living in rural village and dispersed areas in a sparse setting have the poorest accessibility to services (lowest 10 per cent decile) based on minimum travel times compared with 80 per cent of the population living in rural village and dispersed areas not in a sparse setting.
Proportion of the population within each decile for accessibility of services based on minimum travel times by public transport and walking, by rural-urban classification, England, 2019
| Decile 1 | Decile 2 | Decile 3 | Decile 4 | Decile 5 | Decile 6 | Decile 7 | Decile 8 | Decile 9 | Decile 10 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urban areas | 2% | 7% | 9% | 10% | 11% | 11% | 11% | 12% | 12% | 13% |
| Rural areas | 50% | 23% | 11% | 6% | 4% | 2% | 1% | 1% | 1% | <1% |
Source: Department for Transport (DfT) and Defra analysis, ONS mid-year population estimates 2019
Note: Decile 10 represents the 10% of areas with the greatest access to key services, while Decile 1 represents the 10% of areas with the poorest access to key services.
A table showing the proportion of the population within each decile for accessibility of services by public transport and walking in 2019, broken down using a more detailed rural-urban classification is available in the rural living supplementary data tables.
Proportion of population within each decile of accessibility of services based on minimum travel times by public transport and walking, by rural-urban classification and detailed rural classification, England, 2019
As the poorest decile of accessibility of services is predominantly made up of rural LSOAs we were unable to map the data by decile. This is because the map was almost entirely coloured in with the darkest green (denoting poorest accessibility) and therefore showed little information that was not already presented in the graphs above. Because of this we instead mapped the data using Jenks; a method which aims to group data in a way that minimises the variability within each group whilst maximising the variability between groups. A drawback of this method is that the maps cannot be compared to previous years because the thresholds for the 10 groups will not be the same. However, this method does allow the areas with the poorest accessibility to be differentiated from those which are slightly better, and also shows which areas have similar levels of accessibility of services to each other.
Accessibility of services based on minimum travel times using public transport and walking, by rural-urban classification (Lower Super Output Areas), in England (2019)
Source: Department for Transport (DfT) and Defra analysis
3. Travel by Car
Unsurprisingly travelling by car generally reduces travel times to key services compared with public transport and walking, but overall relative differences in travel times are similar, and rural areas still tend to have poorer accessibility (in terms of minimum travel times), compared with urban areas.
Rural areas tend to have poorer accessibility to services based on minimum travel times than urban ones based on minimum travel times when using a car:
- 49 per cent of the rural population are living in areas that have the poorest accessibility to services (lowest 10 per cent decile) based on minimum travel times compared with 2 per cent of the urban population.
- 0.5 per cent of the rural population are living in areas that have the greatest accessibility to services (highest 10 per cent decile) based on minimum travel times compared with 13 per cent of the urban population.
As might be expected, sparsely populated areas tend to have poorer accessibility of services based on minimum travel times when using a car:
- 12 per cent of the population living in urban city and town areas in a sparse setting have the poorest accessibility to services (lowest 10 per cent decile) based on minimum travel times compared with 4 per cent of the population living in urban city and town areas not in a sparse setting.
- 26 per cent of the population living in rural town and fringe areas in a sparse setting have the poorest accessibility to services (lowest 10 per cent decile) based on minimum travel times compared with 23 per cent of the population living in rural town and fringe areas not in a sparse setting.
- 94 per cent of the population living in rural village and dispersed areas in a sparse setting have the poorest accessibility to services (lowest 10 per cent decile) based on minimum travel times compared with 78 per cent of the population living in rural village and dispersed areas not in a sparse setting.
Proportion of the population within each decile for accessibility of services based on minimum travel times by car, by rural-urban classification, England, 2019
| Decile 1 | Decile 2 | Decile 3 | Decile 4 | Decile 5 | Decile 6 | Decile 7 | Decile 8 | Decile 9 | Decile 10 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urban areas | 2% | 8% | 10% | 10% | 11% | 11% | 12% | 12% | 12% | 13% |
| Rural areas | 49% | 21% | 11% | 6% | 4% | 4% | 2% | 1% | 1% | <1% |
Source: Department for Transport (DfT) and Defra analysis, ONS mid-year population estimates 2019
Note: Decile 10 represents the 10% of areas with the greatest access to key services, while Decile 1 represents the 10% of areas with the poorest access to key services.
A table showing the proportion of the population within each decile for accessibility of services by car in 2019, broken down using a more detailed rural-urban classification is available in the rural living supplementary data tables.
Proportion of population within each decile of accessibility of services based on minimum travel times by car, by rural-urban classification and detailed rural classification, England, 2019
As the poorest decile of accessibility of services is predominantly made up of rural LSOAs we were unable to map the data by decile. This is because the map was almost entirely coloured in with the darkest green (denoting poorest accessibility) and therefore showed little information that was not already presented in the graphs above. Because of this we instead mapped the data using Jenks; a method which aims to group data in a way that minimises the variability within each group whilst maximising the variability between groups. A drawback of this method is that the maps cannot be compared to previous years because the thresholds for the 10 groups will not be the same. However, this method does allow the areas with the poorest accessibility to be differentiated from those which are slightly better, and also shows which areas have similar levels of accessibility of services to each other.
Accessibility of services based on minimum travel times using a car, by rural-urban classification (Lower Super Output Areas), in England (2019)
Source: Department for Transport (DfT) and Defra analysis