Research progress of the two-step floating catchment area method and extensions
TAO Zhuolin1, 2, , CHENG Yang3, *
1. College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China2. School of Urban Planning and Design, Peking University, Shenzhen 518055, Guangdong, China3. School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method is an important method of research on spatial accessibility to public services, which has been widely applied in studies on the spatial layout of public service facilities. Various extensions of 2SFCA have been developed. However, the application of the 2SFCA method and especially its extensions is still very limited in China. Thus, this study systematically summarizes the major extensions of the 2SFCA method. Such extensions found in existing literature can be classified into four categories. The first category focuses on the distance-decay function, replacing the dichotomous distance-decay form of the original 2SFCA by a multilevel discrete form as in the Enhanced 2SFCA, or continuous forms such as in the gravity-style, Gaussian-style, and Kernel-density-style distance-decay functions. The second category deals with the delimitation of catchment areas. The original 2SFCA form adopts a buffer-ring (BR) method delineating the catchment areas as concentric circles with certain radii of physical distance or travel time. A number of extensions have improved the BR method, including the Variable 2SFCA, the Dynamic 2SFCA, and the Multi Catchment Sizes 2SFCA. Moreover, a novel nearest-neighbor (NN) method for delineating the catchment areas by identifying a finite number of nearest facilities for each demand node has been proposed. The third category strives to improve the accuracy of 2SFCA by accounting for the competition among demand nodes or among supply nodes. The initial extension of this category is the Three-step Floating Catchment Area (3SFCA) method, following which other extensions such as the Modified 2SFCA and the Huff 2SFCA are proposed to make further improvements. The fourth category extends the travel means of the demand side, including the Multi-mode 2SFCA taking into account various potential transportation modes, and the Commuter-based 2SFCA integrating service visits and commuting behavior. The advantages and disadvantages, scenarios appropriate for their application, and potential improvements in the future of these extensions are also discussed. This study can contribute to the choice of method in relevant studies and promote the implementation and development of the 2SFCA method and extensions in relevant research fields in China.
Keywords:two-step floating catchment area method
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extension
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distance-decay function
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catchment area
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three-step floating catchment area method
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research progress
TAOZhuolin, CHENGYang. Research progress of the two-step floating catchment area method and extensions[J]. 地理科学进展, 2016, 35(5): 589-599 https://doi.org/10.18306/dlkxjz.2016.05.006
另一个较常用的可达性评价方法为重力模型法,也称为潜能模型(宋正娜等, 2009)。实际上,2SFCA和重力模型法基于同一个理论框架(Luo et al, 2003),都综合考虑了设施的供给规模、需求规模和供需之间的距离关系对可达性的影响,两者的不同在于对距离因素的处理:重力模型法采用了连续型距离衰减函数,从而考虑了设施服务能力随距离衰减的特征,但并未对设施的有效搜寻半径进行限制;而2SFCA法采用二分法处理距离衰减,即在搜寻半径阈值范围内的可达性相同,而在搜寻半径范围之外则完全不可达。
Spatial accessibility of medical services in mountainous regions based on modified two-step floating catchment area method: A case study of Shizhu County, Chongqing
A two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method for measuring spatial accessibility to primary healthcare searvice in China: A case study of Donghai County in Jiangsu Province
Research on spatial accessibility of primary school education resources in poverty area based on modified two-step floating catchment area method: A case study of Qianjiang
Accessibility research about urban in-home service facilities for the elderly based on two-step mobile research: Taking low-aging elder people in Shahekou District of Dalian as an example
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Abstract Government efforts designed to help improve healthcare access rely on accurate measures of accessibility so that resources can be allocated to truly needy areas. In order to capture the interaction between physicians and populations, various access measures have been utilized, including the popular two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method. However, despite the many advantages of 2SFCA, the problems associated with using fixed catchment sizes have not been satisfactorily addressed. We propose a new method to dynamically determine physician and population catchment sizes by incrementally increasing the catchment until a base population and a physician-to-population ratio are met. Preliminary application to the ten-county region in northern Illinois has demonstrated that the new method is effective in determining the appropriate catchment sizes across the urban to suburban/rural continuum and has revealed greater detail in spatial variation of accessibility compared to results using fixed catchment sizes. Copyright 漏 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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We first computed catchments around existing medical clinics of Montreal Island based on the shortest network distance. Population nested in dissemination areas were used to determine potential users of a given medical clinic. To optimize the method, medical clinics (supply) were weighted by the number of physicians working in each clinic, while the previous year's medical clinic users were computed by ten years age group was used as weighting coefficient for potential users of each medical clinic (demand).The spatial accessibility score (SA) increased considerably with the optimisation method. Within a distance of 1 Km, for instance, the maximum clinic accessible for 1,000 persons is 2.4 when the conventional method is used, compared with 27.7 for the optimized method. The t-test indicates a significant difference between the conventional and the optimized 2SFCA methods. Also, results of the differences between the two methods reveal a clustering of residuals when distance increases. In other words, a low threshold would be associated with a lack of precision.Results of this study suggest that a greater effort must be made ameliorate spatial accessibility to medical clinics in Montreal. To ensure that health resources are allocated in the interest of the population, health planners and the government should consider a strategy in the sitting of future clinics which would provide spatial access to the greatest number of people.Accessibility to medical clinics is a contentious issue both in the third world [1-3] and in developed countries [4-6]. Poor access to medical clinics may result in people with simple health problems not consulting a health professional and subsequently developing more complex conditions with irreversible consequences [7]. The Canada Health Act (CHA) recognizes the importance of access to healthcare and states that all Canadians are entitled to receive medical services without barriers or restrictions. At the same time, Canadian provincial hea
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Gravity-based spatial access models have been widely used to estimate spatial access to healthcare services in an attempt to capture the interaction of various factors. However, these models are inadequate in informing health resource allocation work due to their inappropriate assumption of healthcare demand. For the purpose of effective healthcare resource planning, this article proposes a three-step floating catchment area (3SFCA) method to minimize the healthcare-demand overestimation problem. Specifically, a spatial impedance-based competition scheme is incorporated into the enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method to account for a reasonable model of healthcare supply and demand. A case study of spatial access to primary care physicians along the Austin鈥揝an Antonio corridor area in central Texas showed that the proposed method effectively minimizes the overestimation of healthcare demand and reflects a more balanced geographic pattern of spatial access than E2SFCA. In addition, by us...
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Despite spending more than any other nation on medical care per person, the United States ranks behind other industrialized nations in key health performance measures. A main cause is the deep disparities in access to care and health outcomes. Federal programs such as the designations of Medically Underserved Areas/Populations and Health Professional Shortage Areas are designed to boost the number of health professionals serving these areas and to help alleviate the access problem. Their effectiveness relies first and foremost on an accurate measure of accessibility so that resources can be allocated to truly needy areas. Various measures of accessibility need to be integrated into one framework for comparison and evaluation. Optimization methods can be used to improve the distribution and supply of health care providers to maximize service coverage, minimize travel needs of patients, limit the number of facilities, and maximize health or access equality. Inequality in health care access comes at a personal and societal price, evidenced in disparities in health outcomes, including late-stage cancer diagnosis. This review surveys recent literature on the three named issues with emphasis on methodological advancements and implications for public policy.
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