Host institution and Co-sponsor with CSISS
Department of Geography
The Ohio State University (http://www.geography.ohio-state.edu)

Instructors
Mei-Po Kwan - Workshop Coordinator (The Ohio State University)
Alan Murray, Morton O'Kelly, Michael Tiefelsdorf (The Ohio State University)
Irene Casas (Assistant Professor, SUNY Buffalo)

The Workshop
Concepts and methods for analyzing accessibility are essential for understanding many significant social, economic, and political issues (e.g., access to jobs, healthcare, transportation and other public facilities for different population subgroups). This workshop focuses on spatial approaches to the conceptualization, measurement, and analysis of accessibility that can be applied to important societal questions in physical, social, or cyber-space. A series of lectures introduce network approaches, time-geographic perspectives, spatial optimization techniques, and spatial interaction modeling of accessibility. Lectures and lab exercises will familiarize participants with analytical methods and procedures for finding solutions for real-world accessibility problems with significant social implications. Illustrations will include equity issues about access to jobs, healthcare, transportation facilities, and voter polling stations; analysis of social networks and individual access to social and economic opportunities; the effects of Internet infrastructure on accessibility to information resources; and the relationship of accessibility to commuting and migration patterns.

Participants will learn to apply concepts and analytical tools in lab sessions in which the use of maps, geographical visualizations and computational methods will be demonstrated. Activity-travel data collected through surveys and by the Global Positioning System (GPS), data on Internet infrastructure, and a comprehensive geographic database of urban opportunities and transportation facilities will be used for hands-on exercises. Participants will acquire skills in using ArcView GIS and other statistical software to address important accessibility issues. Participants are encouraged to bring their own research problems for discussion with workshop instructors and other participants.

Workshop Leaders
Mei-Po Kwan, Alan Murray, Morton O'Kelly, Michael Tiefelsdorf and Irene Casas (all of the Department of Geography, The Ohio State University) will conduct the workshop.

Professor Mei-Po Kwan has contributed to the development and application of space-time accessibility measures. Her research focuses on the analysis and understanding of the spatial mobility and space-time access to jobs and urban opportunities for different population subgroups using GIS-based geocomputational methods and geographical visualization.

Part of Professor Alan Murray's recent research focuses on equity issues in the access to public transport. He works in the area of GIS, location modeling, transportation systems, and spatial optimization methods - with specific interests in spatial representation, spatial analysis, and informed decision making.

Professor Morton O'Kelly is best known for his work in network analysis, location theory (especially for retail trade), and GIS and spatial analysis. His current research interests include the application of network analysis to specific accessibility problems, especially in the study of urban transportation and Internet accessibility.

The main research interest of Professor Michael Tiefelsdorf is the development and application of spatial statistical methods. He has applied these methods on migration analysis and disease mapping.

Irene Casas, a Ph.D. candidate at OSU, has extensive experience in teaching GIS. Her dissertation research examines the effect of real-time travel information on individual activity-travel behavior using a GIS-based interactive simulator and neural networks.

More information about the instructors can be found on the OSU Geography Department's website at http://www.geography.ohio-state.edu/.

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