A Multicriteria Index to Estimate Accessibility

To implant sustainable development goals, land-use planners need holistic indicators. An accessibility index appears particularly important but its evaluation focuses still highly on the economic dimension. Geographical Information Systems and Multicriteria Analysis allow us to promote a holistic definition of accessibility. GIS is used to describe the territory in terms of the transport network, residential areas and location of activities. These data are shared with a transport model capable of computing the shortest path considering different conditions: minimising the duration, the fuel consumption or an easy-to-use index. Information on population preferences can be obtained from an origindestination survey realised in 1996 on the study area (Quebec Metropolitan area). Multicriteria analysis is realised with the ELECTRE TRI method. It compares by pair each housing site considering their quality of access to work, recreation, education, stores, and hospitals. Outranking relations allows to sort housing sites in three classes of overall accessibility.