As Fig. 3 shows, approximately 20 LSOAs met the requirements
of the GISQ3. Further filtering was undertaken by a visual assessment
of public transport services (bus stops and metro stations)
available in each of the selected areas. In this particular case where
the metro network is simple, visual assessment is efficient particularly
if undertaken in conjunction with a check on the number of
bus routes in each of the selected areas. It is important to recognise
that this selection process could have been more sophisticated if
geographical information (e.g., distance to metro stations or bus
stops) was used in the GIS query. However, it is always important
to ensure that the costs do not exceed the benefits of using a tool
and, in this case, the costs of geocoding in terms of time would
have far exceeded the benefits of adding the geographical information
so as to make the selectionapplying geographical attributes to
the final query. In terms of transferability, researchers with ready
access to full public-transport-system information accurately geocoded
with spatially complex networks would find adding a GIS
query quicker than the visual final selection.
The final six residential areas were selected for the research, as
they were located close to the Tyne and Wear metro line (giving
residents multi-modal options). After an additional attribute
query, it was found that a noticeable percentage of residents from
these areas used the metro for travel to work.
Topographic maps of the six final areas with highlighted boundaries
of LSOAs are presented in Fig. 4. Five of the six LSOAs were
located in the District of North Tyneside and had access to the Tyne
and Wear metro line in 2001 (the date of the most recent census
available for the study). The metro extension to Sunderland was
opened in 2002 and this final area was selected for two reasons.
First, to measure the increase (if any) of metro commuters from
that area between 2001 and 2010. Second, this area had a different
topography and housing ‘style’ (semi-detached in the 5 LSOAs and
terraced houses in the 6th LSOA) and permitted a comparison of
socio-economic and travel-to-work data between North Tyneside
and Sunderland LSOAs with different housing styles.
Fig. 4 clearly shows the physical boundaries of the six LSOAs in
their areas and density of bus stops in each area. In addition, the
figure illustrates well that only two of the selected LSOAs (Walkerville
in Fig. 3a and Seaburn in Fig. 3f) are located between metro
stations, with the remaining four LSOAs being located further from
the metro line.