Map Features

Map showing travel time access to nearest hospital for east Greater Manchester by public transport.
Map showing travel time access to nearest hospital for east Greater Manchester by public transport. Access to hospitals from east (right) of Manchester appears far worse (red) than to the south (lower left, green). Further investigation reveals that Tameside General Hospital (upper right) is not terribly easy to reach by public transport from much of Tameside (lower right).
Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors. Census Areas boundaries licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0.

Maps are web-based using Openlayers technology and subscribers can query them by trip purpose, mode of travel and type of accessibility measure. This page contains some non-interactive maps to illustrate the outputs. Users only need to have Javascrips enabled on their computers of mobile devices. Results are immediately displayed as shaded areas on the map, using standard British (2011) census geography. Clicking on an area brings up a box with data relating to the location - such as time to services and census area code. Some data on destination locations is not openly available so cannot be displayed.

The scale of the maps automatically changes depending on zoom to ensure an appropriate level of detail is shown to main clear mapping at all scales, from local authority districts (2013), through Middle Layer Super Output Areas (or Intermediate Zone in Scotland, 2011), to Lower Layer Super Output Areas (or Data Zone in Scotland, 2011). Boundaries are shown against an Open Street Map base.

Map Data

Map showing choice of large (5000+ employees) sites by cycle, along the river Thames.
Map showing choice of large (5000+ employees) sites by cycle, along the river Thames. Central London offers a predictably high level of choice between large employers (green, upper right). However distance from the centre is not the only factor: Parts of Wandsworth (lower centre, selected) have half the Choice rating for large employment sites than part of Acton (upper left), in spite of both being a similar distance from the centre of London.
Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors. Census Areas boundaries licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0.

Travel times are shown in minutes to nearest destination or if selected the choice of destinations available.

Aggregate "all" values average data for all of the destination-specific values mapped for each country by the selected mode. Since the range of destinations varies between countries (see below), these all values are not comparable between countries, only within. "All" values give a crude assessment of access to a range of services, but can be useful when highlighting dominant patterns, such relatively poor public transport access for deep rural areas, in comparison to more built up city areas.

The choice rating is a value from 0 to 10. Higher values indicate access to a wider choice of individual services (matching the destination type selected). The rating is calculated from the travel time to the nearest 10 locations, weighted by a mode and destination type-specific "deterrence parameter" which reflects the willingness of people to travel to different destination types by different modes.

Geographic Coverage

Map showing travel time access to nearest Secondary School in Cardiff.
Map showing travel time access to nearest Secondary School in Cardiff. Central areas of cities cannot be assumed to have good access to secondary schools by car, as Cardiff demonstrates.
Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors. Census Areas boundaries licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0.

Car and public transport travel times are mapped for England, Wales and Scotland. England's maps also include travel time by cycle, and a Choice rating for all 3 modes.

Available destination types are shown in the table below:

Destination TypeEnglandWalesScotland
EmploymentYesNoNo
Food StoreYesYesNo
Further EducationYesNoNo
General PractitionerYesYesYes
HospitalYesNoNo
PharmacyYesYesNo
Post OfficeNoYesYes
Primary SchoolYesYesCar Only
Secondary SchoolYesYesCar Only
Town CentreYesNoNo

Northern Ireland and island dependencies (such as the Isle of Man) are not included on any map.

Pharmacy Access Scheme

The Department for Health and Social Care map access to pharmacies to ensure that there is a local pharmacy close to as many homes as possible in England. Use the mapping interface here to check the distances and walking routes used in the pharmacy access scheme calculations.

To map the Distances and Routes between Pharmacies to check what routes have been assumed by the Department for Health and Social Care: