Analysis of the impact of the MRT system on accessibility

in Singapore using an integrated GIS tool

Xuan Zhu
*
, Suxia Liu
National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616, Singapore
Abstract
Central to the Singapores land transportation strategy is to develop an extensive rapid transit network to provide quality public
transport services and maximize accessibility for commuters to key nodes of employment, housing, leisure and other social activities.
This paper presents a study on the impact of the mass rapid transit (MRT) network on accessibility in Singapore using an integrated
GIS tool. Four types of accessibility are assessed, including the accessibility to the central business district, to working population,
and to industrial and commercial opportunities. It also analyzes the changes in accessibility brought about by the new MRT lines.
The accessibility analyses conducted in this study show that the closer to the central area of Singapore and the EastWest MRT line
a location is, the higher accessibility it attains, and the new NorthEast MRT line has greatly improved accessibility of the
northeastern areas, but has insignicant impact on accessibility of the northern, northwestern and eastern part of the country.
2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Accessibility analysis; Accessibility measures; Urban transportation planning; Geographic information systems
1. Introduction
Urban transportation is essential to the fabric of ur-
ban life. The true goal of transportation is access (ICT,
1974; OSullivan et al., 2000). The structure and capacity
of the urban transportation network directly aects the
level of accessibility, or the ease of getting from one
place to another, within the city. The location of a place
within the transportation network determines its acces-
sibility, while the accessibility of the place has a major
impact on its land value, and hence the use to which the
land is put. Therefore, the existing urban land use con-
guration helps to shape travel patterns, and the urban
transportation system shapes urban land use patterns by
inuencing the accessibility of locations within the ur-
ban area. The inuence of transportation and accessi-
bility on shaping and changing urban structure has been
recognized in the urban transportation planning process
(Bruton, 1985; Hanson, 1986; Tolley and Turton, 1995;
Taae et al., 1996). Maximizing accessibility, along with
minimizing travel, revitalizing central cities, minimizing
environmental impacts and reducing social inequities, is
becoming an important agenda in urban transportation
planning (Tolley and Turton, 1995; Handy and Nieme-
ier, 1997; Polzin, 1999).
Since the 1970s, urban transportation planning in
Singapore has been integrated with overall land use
planning, aiming to develop an ecient road network
and public transportation system in order to overcome
the constraints of a limited land supply and manage the
many demands placed on the transportation system.
Maximizing accessibility for commuters to key nodes of
employment, housing, leisure and other social activities
is one of the fundamental goals of transportation
planning and urban development (LTA, 1996). Central
to the Singapores land transportation strategy is to
develop an extensive rapid transit network to provide
quality public transport services. An integrated multi-
modal public transport system has been designed in
Singapore. Within the system, the mass rapid transit
(MRT) network serves the heavy transit corridors for
long-haul travel; the light rapid transit (LRT) serves
light corridors and provides feeder services to connect
areas in housing estates to MRT stations; and scheduled
buses provide comprehensive coverage of areas not
served by the MRT and LRT (LTA, 1996). Construc-
tion of the MRT and LRT systems, upgrading of the
bus eet, improvements in the bus network and keeping
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +65-67903423; fax: +65-68969135.
E-mail address: xzhu@nie.edu.sg (X. Zhu).
0966-6923/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2003.10.003
Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101
www.elsevier.com/locate/jtrangeo
fares aordable have all enhanced the attractiveness of
public transportation.
The construction of the MRT system in Singapore
commenced in 1984 under the government statutory
board Mass Rapid Transit Corporation (Phang, 1997).
The basic MRT system is made up of an EastWest line
and a NorthSouth line with interchange facilities be-
tween the two lines at Raes Station and City Hall
Station in the central area (Fig. 1). To operate the sys-
tem, the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit Limited was set
up as a private company in August 1987. The rst MRT
section was opened in November 1987 serving ve sta-
tions from Toa Payoh to Yio Chu Kang in the North
South line. The second MRT section was opened in
December 1987 serving nine stations from Novena to
Outram Park. The whole basic MRT system was com-
pleted in 1990 with a route of 67 km and 42 stations. The
system was designed to have 40% of the business and
industrial areas as well as 30% of the residential areas
within the walking distance of MRT stations.
In 1996, a 16 km Woodlands extension of the North
South line through new housing towns in the northern
part of Singapore was opened. The new Changi Airport
MRT Extension branches o from the main EastWest
line, comprising two stations: Expo Station and Changi
Airport Station. Construction began on the Changi
Airport MRT Extension in January 1999 and Expo
Station was opened for revenue service on 10 January
2001 while the Changi Airport Station started opera-
tions on 8 February 2002. Another new MRT line, the
NorthEast Line, is the second major MRT line being
built since the completion of the basic MRT network. It
is in the nal phase of the civil works at the time when
the paper is written. When completed, the NorthEast
Line will connect the housing towns in the northeastern
part of Singapore to the city. The Circle Line is a me-
dium capacity orbital line linking all MRT lines running
into the city. This fully underground line will inter-
change with the NorthSouth Line, EastWest Line and
the future NorthEast Line. The Circle Line will be built
in stages. The rst two stages are expected to be com-
pleted in 2006.
This paper presents a study on the impact of the basic
MRT system and two new MRT lines (the Changi
Airport MRT Extension and the NorthEast line) on
accessibility in Singapore using an integrated GIS
(geographic information systems) tool. First, the main
features of the integrated GIS tool, Accessibility Ana-
lyst, are described. Then, the accessibility measures used
in Accessibility Analyst are discussed. Next, the data
sources for this study are described. Afterwards, four
types of accessibility by MRT are assessed. They include
the accessibility to the central business district (CBD), to
working population, to industrial opportunities and to
commercial opportunities. For each type of accessibility,
analyses are conducted for two scenarios: before and
after the two new MRT lines were introduced. The
dierences of accessibility between the two scenarios are
also analyzed. Finally, the major ndings from the study
are summarized and discussed.
2. Accessibility Analyst: an integrated GIS tool for
accessibility analysis
Accessibility analysis involves formulating the con-
cept of accessibility, selecting or developing appropriate
accessibility measures or indices, specifying the accessi-
Fig. 1. The rapid transit system in Singapore.
90 X. Zhu, S. Liu / Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101
bility measures, assessing accessibility using the selected
or developed measures, and presenting and interpreting
the assessment results. Given the spatial nature of ac-
cessibility, GIS has become a useful tool for accessibility
analysis, which provides capabilities for data collection,
data management and manipulation, spatial analysis,
network analysis, and cartographical presentation of
accessibility measures. Liu (2002) developed an inte-
grated GIS approach to accessibility analysis which is
illustrated in Fig. 2.
This approach consists of six major processes or el-
ements: problem denition and data collection, query
and data retrieval, measure selection and specication,
travel impedance measurement, calculation of accessi-
bility measures and visualization of accessibility values,
which correspond to each step of the accessibility anal-
ysis process. The problem denition and data collection
process is to dene the accessibility problem in the study
area, identify data requirements, collect and pre-process
both spatial and non-spatial data from various sources,
and to build a GIS database. The output of the query
and data retrieval process is a set of data. These data can
be used to help understand the planning context, for-
mulate the concept of accessibility and conduct sub-
sequent analyses. The third process measure selection
and specication selects appropriate accessibility mea-
sures based on the concept and species the selected
measures by applying relevant spatial data manipulation
and spatial analysis operations. This process may in-
volve generating the data layers depicting the origins
and destinations (represented as census tracts, planning
areas, or locations of points representing individual
building blocks, households or individuals), calculating
the attractiveness of the potential destinations and de-
ning other parameter values of the selected accessibility
measures. The process travel impedance measurement
measures travel impedance between every pair of an
origin and a destination by using spatial analysis and/or
network analysis operations and generates origindes-
tination (OD) travel impedance matrices, based on
which the calculation of accessibility measures process
uses the selected accessibility measures to calculate ac-
cessibility and outputs the accessibility values. These
values are then displayed as maps, 3D views, charts or
tables through the visualization of accessibility values
process, or interpolated into surfaces and presented as
isolines or 3D views through the surface modeling pro-
cess.
For implementing this approach, an integrated GIS
tool, Accessibility Analyst, was developed by Liu (2002).
It was designed as an extension of ArcView, a popular
desktop GIS software package (ESRI, 1996). Accessi-
bility Analyst is integrated with the ArcView software
environment and interoperates seamlessly with other
ArcView extensions. Broadly, Accessibility Analyst
provides four groups of functions: data preparation,
travel impedance measurement, accessibility measure-
ment and visualization (Fig. 3).
The data preparation functions are used for prepar-
ing data required for accessibility analysis, which in-
clude getting centroids of zones (polygons) or groups of
points representing origins and destinations and nding
the points on transportation networks closest to origins
and destinations. The travel impedance measurement
functions measure straight-line distances, shortest-path
distances along the transportation network, network
distances along the actual travel routes, travel time and
costs (Liu, 2002). The calculated travel impedance val-
ues are stored as OD travel impedance matrices. The
accessibility measurement functions calculate the acces-
sibility measures based on the OD travel impedance
matrices. Accessibility Analyst supports six types of ac-
cessibility measures, including catchment prole analy-
sis, cumulative-opportunity measures, potential models, Fig. 2. An integrated GIS approach to accessibility analysis.
X. Zhu, S. Liu / Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101 91
modied potential models, double constrained potential
models and utility-based measures. These measures are
to be discussed in details in the next section. The ac-
cessibility values derived from these measures can be
mapped, interpolated or visualized in 3D using the
standard ArcView functions for mapping, surface
modeling and 3D views. Two special visualization
functions for accessibility analysis are also provided.
They are the location prole chart and the cumulative
prole chart. The location prole chart displays the
percentage of origins or proportion of weight values of
the origins within a certain range of distance (or time or
cost) to a particular destination, while the cumulative
prole chart displays the cumulative percentages of or-
igins or weight values within dierent ranges of distance
(or time or cost) to a particular destination. The func-
tionality of Accessibility Analyst is detailed in Liu
(2002).
3. Review of accessibility measures
Accessibility is determined mainly by the land use
patterns and the nature of the transportation system.
Essentially, accessibility denotes the ease with which
activities may be reached from a given location by
means of a particular transportation system (Morris
et al., 1979). It is usually measured in terms of travel
distance, time or cost. The less time and money spent in
travel, the more activities that can be reached in a given
amount of time and within a certain budget and the
greater the accessibility.
Any measure of accessibility should incorporate at
least two elements: the activity element characterized by
the spatial distribution and attraction of the various
activities, and the transportation element characterized
by travel distance, time or cost for reaching specic
activity sites by certain transportation modes (Handy
and Niemeier, 1997). An accessibility measure is usually
formulated in terms of a set of destinations representing
activity sites and a set of origins representing potential
users of the facilities at the activity sites. Individual
destinations may be weighted by their attractiveness.
For a shopping centre, its attractiveness can be mea-
sured by a combination of factors such as oor space
and parking space, which might aect customers in-
terest in it. In the case of a school, its attractiveness may
be measured in terms of the maximum number of pupils
and the range and quality of school services provided.
Individual origins may also be weighted by their socio-
economic factors such as the number of residents, social
and age class. These factors reect the level of potential
demand for particular activities. Most accessibility
measures assume that the accessibility between origins
and destinations is directly proportional to the associ-
ated demand and attraction, and inversely proportional
to the distance or time or cost for traveling between
them. Over the last four decades, various accessibility
measures have been developed and used to evaluate the
performance of urban transportation systems and serve
as a basis for making trade-os between land use and
transportation policies (Davidson, 1977; Jones, 1981;
Kwan, 1998). Here, only the measures used in Accessi-
bility Analyst are to be reviewed and discussed.
The simplest accessibility measures are opportunity-
based measures, which are concerned with the number
of opportunities (or destinations) available within a
certain distance (or travel time or cost) from an origin
Fig. 3. Functions of Accessibility Analyst.
92 X. Zhu, S. Liu / Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101
(Breheny, 1978). Both catchment prole analysis and the
cumulative-opportunity measure are opportunity-based
measures. Catchment prole analysis is to nd the
nearest destinations to an origin, while the cumulative-
opportunity measure counts the number of destinations
or opportunities available within a specied distance (or
travel time or cost) from an origin (Wachs and Kuma-
gai, 1973).
Potential models are derived from the gravity model
of spatial interaction, which suggests that the potential
of opportunity between two places is positively related
to the sizes of the attractiveness of the places and neg-
atively related to travel impedance between them (Rich,
1980; Geertman and van Eck, 1995). A potential model
can be mathematically expressed as:
P
i

X
j
M
j
C
a
ij
; 1; 2; . . . ; m; j 1; 2; . . . ; n 1
where P
i
is the potential or accessibility of origin i, M
j
is
the attraction of destination j, C
ij
is the distance (or
travel time or cost) between origin i and destination j, a
is the distance decay parameter, m is the number of
origins and n is the number of destinations.
Potential models are generally used to measure the
intensity of possible interaction between social or eco-
nomic groups at dierent locations, and have been used
as an index of the inuence of one place or group on
another, as a measure of the nearness of groups to a
location, and as an indicator of accessibility of groups in
dierent places relative to each other (Rich, 1980). They
can also be used to determine the aggregate centrality of
places in relation to population, industry, employment
or services in the surrounding area (Geertman and van
Eck, 1995). However, Shen (1998) identied a major
limitation with potential models when he used such a
model in the study of employment accessibility of low-
wage workers living in Bostons inner-city neighbour-
hoods. He found that at least one of the following two
conditions must be satised in order to make a potential
model valid: (1) the demand for the available opportu-
nities is uniformly distributed across the space; and (2)
the available opportunities have no capacity limitation.
In reality, however, the above conditions may not be
met. Particularly the rst condition is seldom met in
urban areas as population, companies, services, and
other activities and facilities are distributed unevenly.
Because opportunities exist in locations with dierent
levels of demand potential, accessibility to each of the
opportunities is determined partly by the demand po-
tential for the particular location of the opportunities.
Therefore, Shen (1998) introduced the demand potential
for each location into the potential model in his analysis
on employment accessibility, and developed a new
measure, which is written as:
P
i

X
j
M
j
=C
a
ij
D
j
; D
j

X
k
W
k
C
a
kj
;
i; k 1; 2; . . . ; m; j 1; 2; . . . ; n 2
where D
j
is the demand potential for destination j, and
W
k
is the demand for opportunities (e.g. the population
seeking for employment opportunities) at origin k. We
call this measure a double constrained potential model.
It can be interpreted as that an origins accessibility is
the sum of its supply potential relative to each destina-
tion weighted by the demand potential of that destina-
tion. The double constrained potential model can be
applied to situations where competition for available
opportunities exists and accessibility to these opportu-
nities is inuenced by the demand potential for the
particular location of the opportunities.
The accessibility or potential values returned from the
potential models discussed above are useful for com-
paring the relative levels of accessibility of all the loca-
tions under investigation. However, there is no clear
sense of what constitutes a high or low accessibility
value. In order to provide an accessibility measure which
provides a value in meaningful units, Geertman and van
Eck (1995) developed a modied potential model which
can be expressed as:
P
i

P
j
M
j
=C
a1
ij

P
l
M
l
=C
a
il

; i 1; 2; . . . ; m; j; l 1; 2; . . . ; n
3
The results will be accessibility values measured in the
same unit as C
ij
and can be interpreted as weighted
average distances or travel costs or time to all destina-
tions.
Utility-based measures apply random utility theory to
model the behavior and the net benets of dierent users
of a transportation system (Ben-Akiva and Lerman,
1985). In these measures, the probability of an individ-
ual making a particular choice depends on the utility of
that choice relative to the utility of all choices. In other
words, the benet or consumer surplus received by an
individual is the maximum utility of a choice set. As-
suming that an individual assigns a utility to each des-
tination (or mode of travel) choice in some specied
choice set, and then selects the alternative which maxi-
mizes his or her utility, accessibility can be dened as the
denominator of the multinomial logit model, also
known as the logsum (Ben-Akiva and Lerman, 1985;
Handy and Niemeier, 1997). By considering, for exam-
ple, a logit model, the benet u
ij
associated with op-
portunity j, which is given to individual i, can be derived
by:
u
ij
v
ij
bc
ij
4
where v
ij
is the value of making the trip to take oppor-
tunity j by individual i, c
ij
is the cost for individual i to
X. Zhu, S. Liu / Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101 93
travel to j, and b is a cost-sensitivity parameter. Assume
that C
i
is the choice set for individual i. Accessibility, A
i
,
for an individual i, is then measured as:
A
i
ln
X
j2Ci
expu
ij

" #
5
Specifying the utility function necessitates the inclu-
sion of variables that represent the attributes of each
choice, reecting the attractiveness of the destination
and the travel impedance that must be overcome to
reach the destination, the socio-economic characteristics
of the individual or household, and individual tastes and
preferences (Handy and Niemeier, 1997). Despite its
methodological signicance, there are some drawbacks
to the utility-based accessibility measure. These include
interpretability and an inability to compare dierent
utility functions (Handy and Niemeier, 1997). In addi-
tion, the utility concept of accessibility expressed above
is rarely used in empirical applications (Martellato et al.,
1995).
4. Data sources and preparation
In order to measure and analyze accessibility by
MRT in Singapore using the integrated GIS approach
and Accessibility Analyst, a GIS database was built. It
incorporates spatial and non-spatial data from dierent
sources, including street directory data, address point
data, road networks, MRT networks, building outlines,
planning zones, housing estates, population and other
socio-economic data.
Singapore is divided into 55 planning zones for the
purpose of preparing the detailed Development Guide
Plans (DGP) under the broad vision of the Concept Plan
for Singapores long term physical development, pre-
pared by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA),
Singapores national planning and conservation au-
thority. A planning zone is called a DGP zone, for which
a DGP is developed. A DGP takes into account the
development potential of the area in making provision
for housing, commerce, industries, transportation, in-
stitutional uses such as schools, hospitals and places of
worship, parks and open spaces as well as the intensities
of development allowed for these land uses (Perry et al.,
1997). DGP zones are further divided into sub-zones.
The size of each DGP zone and its sub-zones varies
depending on the land uses and existing physical sepa-
rators such as expressways, rivers, major open spaces
and other demarcators.
In 1960, Singapore launched a massive public hous-
ing program with the establishment of the Housing and
Development Board (HDB), a statutory board of the
Ministry of National Development. Since then, HDB
has planned and developed low cost public housing and
related facilities. According to the Singapore Census
2000 (SDS, 2001), 88% of households in Singapore are
now living in HDB public ats. These ats are com-
pactly concentrated in 26 HDB housing estates, also
called HDB Towns. Fig. 4 shows the distribution of the
DGP zones and the HDB towns.
Most of the spatial data in the GIS database were
derived from digital land base data provided by the
Singapore Land Authority (SLA) under the Ministry of
Law. The land base data are a result of the joint eort
from various government departments and statutory
boards to develop GIS services and digital map prod-
ucts. They are a convergence and integration of various
data, incorporating buildings, roads and cadastral in-
formation from the Building and Construction Au-
thority, the HDB, the Jurong Town Corporation, the
Land Transport Authority and the Survey Department.
All spatial data were transformed to ArcView shapeles,
Fig. 4. DGP Zones and HDB towns (TS, BL, JE, . . . are DGP zone codes).
94 X. Zhu, S. Liu / Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101
the major data format used by ArcView for representing
and storing spatial data (ESRI, 1996).
Population, land use and other socio-economic data at
the DGP level were obtained fromthe Census 1990 (SDS,
1994), the Census 2000 (SDS, 2001), the HDB Annual
Reports (http://www.hdb.gov.sg/), the published prole
of HDB residents (HDB, 2000), and the Development
Guide Plans (http://www.ura.gov.sg/dgp_reports/). How-
ever, the population and other socio-economic data
based on DGP sub-zones, HDB building block groups or
individual census tracts are not in the public domain.
Therefore, the accessibility analyses conducted in this
study can only rely on some average data available to the
public for the HDB towns and DGP zones. In addition,
there are no detailed data about bus routes available.
When we analyze accessibility by using MRT as a major
transportation mode and bus as a complementary mode,
we can only use the shortest path between a given origin
or destination and an MRT station as a bus route to
calculate the travel distance, time or cost by bus.
5. Accessibility to the CBD from the HDB towns
In this accessibility analysis, the City Hall MRT
station is used as the point of reference for the CBD. For
each HDB town, the town centre is used as the point of
accessibility reference for the town area as a whole. The
accessibility to the CBD from the HDB town centers is
measured in terms of travel time during the peak hours.
There are several assumptions in this analysis. These
include that:
the average speed of bus is 19.2 km
2
/h (Newman and
Kenworthy, 1999) and the average frequency of buses
is about 3 min during the peak hours (http://
www.sbstransit.com.sg/);
the average speed of MRT is 45 km
2
/h and the aver-
age frequency of MRT services is about 3 min during
the peak hours (http://www.smrt.com.sg);
the average speed of LRT is 25 km
2
/h and the average
frequency of LRT services is about 3 min during the
peak hours (http://www.slrt.com.sg);
the time for transfer from bus to MRT, from LRT to
MRT, from MRT to LRT and from MRT or LRT to
bus is 3 min during the peak hours (excluding walk-
ing time);
the waiting time during the peak hours is 3 min;
a traveler takes a bus or/and LRT to the nearest
MRT station rst and then travels by MRT to the
MRT station closest to the destination. From the sta-
tion, he or she travels to the destination by bus or/and
LRT;
there are always bus services from the origins or des-
tinations to the MRT/LRT stations; and
the shortest street paths from the origins or desti-
nations to the MRT/LRT stations are used as the
bus routes due to the lack of the detailed bus route
data.
The Network Time Matrix function in Accessibility
Analyst is used to calculate the travel time and output
an OD travel time matrix. The travel time derived for all
HDB towns is then used by the Cumulative Prole Chart
function of Accessibility Analyst to calculate and illus-
trate the population distribution by travel time. Figs. 5
and 6 are cumulative prole charts generated respec-
tively for the before and after scenarios. In both sce-
narios, more than 90% of the population working in the
central area can reach the CBD within 40 min. Fig. 5
Fig. 5. Cumulative prole chart showing the population distribution by time for traveling from the HDB towns to the CBD for the before scenario.
X. Zhu, S. Liu / Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101 95
shows that in the before scenario, about 4% of the
population who live in the HDB towns and work in the
central area are within 15 min of travel by MRT as a
major means, about 23% of the population within 20
min, about 52% of the population within 25 min, and
53% of the population within 30 min. By comparing Fig.
6 with Fig. 5, we can see that after the new MRT lines
are constructed, there is an increase of 6% of the pop-
ulation who live in the HDB towns and work in the
central area are within 15 min of travel by MRT as a
major means, a 9% increase within 25 min, and also a
10% increase within 30 min.
6. Accessibility to working population in the HDB towns
This section applies the potential model expressed in
Eq. (1) to measure the accessibility of the DGP zones to
the working population (aged 15 years and above) liv-
ing in the HDB towns. Here, P
i
represents the accessi-
bility to working population living in the HDB towns
attained by DGP Zone i, M
j
is the working population
living in HDB Town j, and C
ij
is the peak-hour travel
time from HDB Town j to DGP Zone i. C
ij
is calcu-
lated using the Network Time Matrix function. The a
value used most often in empirical studies is 1 (Gut-
ierrez and Gomez, 1999). It is also used in this inves-
tigation. The model is implemented using the Potential
Model function in Accessibility Analyst. The same as-
sumptions as those listed in the previous section are
applied in this analysis.
The accessibility or potential values are calculated
respectively for the before and after scenarios.
Working population values are xed in both scenarios.
Fig. 7 shows the pattern of accessibility for the before
scenario. Most of the DGP zones along the EastWest
line and the southern sections of the NorthSouth line
have higher potential values, because they are highly
accessible and also closer to the HDB towns that have
high working population. The DGP zones in the pe-
riphery areas except in the south have low potential
values because they are far away from the MRT net-
work and the HDB towns. In general, the patterns of
accessibility in the before and after scenarios are very
similar. In both scenarios, the Bedok DGP zone (BD)
has the highest accessibility to working population
due to its proximity to the two HDB towns with the
largest working populations in Singapore, while the
Changi Bay DGP zone (CB) has the lowest accessibility
value.
The construction of the new MRT lines has improved
accessibility of the DGP zones to the working popula-
tion overall. Fig. 8 shows the changes in accessibility to
working population, in which the 3D view represents the
relative changes and the 2D isoline map describes the
absolute changes. It can be clearly seen that in general,
the DGP zones along the new MRT lines have bigger
improvement than the others whose greater distance
from the new lines means less benet is obtained. The
biggest improvements occur in Punggol (PG) with an
increase of about 20% accessibility to working popula-
tion, Changi (CH) with an increase of about 17%,
Hougang (HG) with an increase of about 10%, and Paya
Lebar (PL) and Outram (OP) with an increase of about
9%. However, the new lines have little impact on the
accessibility to working population in the north region
and the area along the section of the EastWest line
starting from the Bedok DGP zone (BD) to its east end.
There are basically two reasons why this happens. One is
that there are no HDB towns in Changi (CH) and
Fig. 6. Cumulative prole chart showing the population distribution by time for traveling from the HDB towns to the CBD for the after scenario.
96 X. Zhu, S. Liu / Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101
Changi Bay (CB). The other is that the use of the
NorthEast line as compared to the use of bus trans-
portation actually increases the travel distance from the
northern and eastern part of the country to the HDB
town areas along the line because travelers have to
transfer at MRT stations in the CBD. Based on our
assumption, in the before scenario, a traveler from the
northern or eastern part of the country might go to an
area close to the NorthEast line by rst taking MRT to
the MRT station on the NorthSouth or EastWest line
nearest to the destination, and then walking or taking a
bus to the destination. The distance required for travel
in this way could be shorter than those required by
taking MRT to the CBD rst and then to the destina-
tion using the NorthEast line. Therefore, the new
NorthEast line does not benet the travelers in those
areas in terms of time. In contrast, some benet is ob-
tained in the western part of the country due to the
linkage of the EastWest line with the NorthEast line
that improves the accessibility of the western region to
the NorthEast region.
The patterns of accessibility derived from this anal-
ysis illustrate the relative attractiveness of the DGP
zones in terms of their access to the working population
and are useful for comparing the potentials of all the
planning zones for attracting workers. The higher the
accessibility or potential value a DGP has, the more
workers it can access. Usually, companies and employ-
ers want to know from which location they can reach a
large number of workers and consumers. Therefore, this
analysis can help them locate their businesses and ser-
vices to maximize the access to the workers. For plan-
ners, the accessibility patterns can help them analyze the
potentials of the development of industrial and business
park areas as employment centers by capitalizing on the
accessibility to working population.
Fig. 8. Changes in accessibility to working population.
Fig. 7. The accessibility of the DGP zones to working population in the HDB towns for the before scenario.
X. Zhu, S. Liu / Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101 97
7. Accessibility to industrial opportunities in the DGP
zones
The industrial opportunity in a DGP zone is based on
the existing land area for industrial use in that zone. The
level of accessibility to industrial opportunities available
in the DGP zones attained by each HDB town is also
measured using the potential model expressed in Eq. (1).
Here, P
i
is the accessibility of HDB Town i to the in-
dustrial opportunities in the DGP zones, M
j
is the land
area (ha) for industrial use in DGP Zone j, C
ij
is the
peak-hour travel time between HDB Town i to DGP
Zone j, and a is set as 1. C
ij
is calculated using the
Network Time Matrix function. The same assumptions
as above are used in this case.
The model is run respectively for the before and
after scenarios. The modeling results show that in both
scenarios, the highest level of accessibility to industrial
opportunities is achieved in the southwest of the island,
centred at the Jurong West HDB town. Fig. 9 shows the
accessibility surface for the after scenario. In general,
the accessibility surface slopes upwards from northeast
to southwest scattered with peaks and troughs. This
trend is consistent with the spatial distribution of the
land area for industry and the spatial congurations of
both basic and new MRT networks. For example, the
Jurong West HDB town area is located in the west re-
gion containing Boon Lay (BL), Jurong West (JW),
Jurong East (JE) and Tuas (TS) DGP zones, which have
the largest land area for industrial use and easy access to
the MRT network. The Sengkang and Tampines HDB
towns in the northeast and east attain the lowest level of
accessibility because the land area for industrial use in
the DGP zones near them is small and they are far away
from the DGP zones in the west that have a large land
area for industrial use.
The changes in the level of accessibility to industrial
opportunities from the before scenario to the after
scenario are small. Fig. 10 highlights the relative and
absolute changes numerically. As it indicates, the biggest
changes occur along the new NorthEast line with the
peak in the Sengkang HDB town area, which has an
increase of about 13% in accessibility to industrial op-
portunities although it remains among those with the
lowest accessibility. The smallest changes are also re-
corded in the north and the east. It proves again that the
new MRT lines, the NorthEast line and Changi MRT
Extension, have little impact on accessibility of the
northwest, north, and southeast areas (excluding Changi
and Changi Bay), but improve accessibility of the other
areas.
8. Accessibility to commercial opportunities in the DGP
zones
In this section, the modied potential model ex-
pressed in Eq. (3) is used to measure the accessibility of
the HDB towns to the commercial opportunities in the
DGP zones. The commercial opportunities are mea-
sured as the existing land area for commercial use in
each DGP zone. Here, P
i
is the accessibility of HDB
Town i to the commercial opportunities in the DGP
zones, M
j
is the gross oor area (m
2
) for commercial use
in DGP Zone j, C
ij
is the travel cost between HDB
Town i to DGP Zone j, and a is set as 2. It is imple-
mented using the Modied Potential Model function.
Here, the impedance between an HDB town and a
DGP zone is measured in terms of travel cost using the
Network Cost Matrix function in Accessibility Analyst
based on the adult fares for bus, LRT and MRT in
Singapore (Liu, 2002). The potential value for a given
HDB town calculated by the modied potential model is
in Singapore cents. The lower the potential value the
better the accessibility. Figs. 11 and 12 show the acces-
sibility surfaces resulted from the model respectively for
Fig. 9. The accessibility of the HDB towns to industrial opportunities in the DGP zones for the after scenario.
98 X. Zhu, S. Liu / Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101
the before and after scenarios. In both scenarios, the
general patterns of accessibility are typically concentric
around the CBD and nearby areas, where the commer-
cial areas are highly concentrated. The most peripheral
HDB town areas tend to be least accessible. However,
the NorthEast line signicantly improves the com-
mercial accessibility of people living in the HDB town
areas near the new line, which is demonstrated by the
changed pattern of the isolines across it in Fig. 12. The
biggest improvement still occurs in the Sengkang HDB
town area with an increase of 910% in accessibility to
commercial opportunities. Little improvement is re-
corded in the north, northwest and east.
It is important to point out that the accessibility
surfaces presented in Figs. 11 and 12 were generated
using the Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) interpola-
tion procedure built in ArcView based on the locations
of the HDB town centers and their associated potential
values. The results of this interpolation procedure some-
times can produce distorted patterns, particularly when
the base points are few in number and unevenly dis-
tributed. As shown in Figs. 11 and 12, it appears that
Tuas at the southwest corner has the same or even
higher accessibility than Jurong West at the west end of
the EastWest line, and Changi Bay at the southeast
corner has higher accessibility than Pasir Ris at the east
end of the EastWest line. In fact this is not so. Jurong
West and Pasir Ris are so close to the MRT line and
Tuas and Changi Bay are relatively remote. Such un-
usual interpolation results occur in almost all peripheral
areas in the west, north and east. The main reason is
that there exist very few HDB towns in these areas.
The interpolation procedure uses the base points, which
are far away and have higher accessibility values than
those that in fact occur in those areas. Therefore, when
the interpolation is performed, it will tend to overes-
timate the missing accessibility values and produce
errors.
Fig. 11. The accessibility of the HDB towns to commercial opportunities in the DGP zones for the before scenario.
Fig. 10. Changes in accessibility to industrial opportunities.
X. Zhu, S. Liu / Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101 99
9. Discussion and conclusion
The accessibility analyses conducted above suggest
that the closer to the central area and the EastWest line
a location is, the higher accessibility in almost all aspects
it attains. It is generally consistent with the urban de-
velopment pattern of Singapore. Singapores urban de-
velopment has evolved around the central area, which
has been the commercial centre of the city since the rst
town plan drawn in 1822. The 1958 Master Plan for
comprehensive urban development proposed a redistri-
bution of the population living in the central area by the
development of new towns and a green belt to stop the
expansion of the central area. The Concept Plan for long
term physical development completed in the early 1970s
furthered the earlier decentralisation policy by devel-
oping the key infrastructure including expressway and
MRT networks linking the Changi International Air-
port in the east with Jurong Industrial Estate in the west,
and linking the new towns with the central area and
other activities. The central area not only remains as a
city core, but also becomes a central point for inter-
change of public transportation. Therefore, the areas
close to the central area and the EastWest MRT line
have higher accessibility in general than other areas.
The empirical evidence obtained in this study indi-
cates that the construction of the new NorthEast line
has greatly improved accessibility of the northeastern
areas, but has insignicant impact on accessibility of the
northern, northwestern and eastern part of the country.
However, as the input data and the resulting values of
potential models are given for some sort of zones (e.g.
DGP zones and HDB town areas), the distance between
two zones are estimated as the distance between the
centroids. In addition, the accessibility analyses used the
HDB town areas and DGP zones as spatial units. More
details of spatial variation in accessibility can be ob-
tained when using a zoning system at a ner spatial
resolution. Smaller zones should result in more accurate
estimates of accessibility in the zone, as accessibility can
vary greatly across small distances. There is no doubt
that our understanding of location and accessibility will
be much improved if more accurate data are available
for a set of areas at a ner spatial resolution. Moreover,
the empirical research did not examine the interactions
between spatial and socio-economic factors when anal-
ysing the accessibility to working population, industrial
and commercial opportunities. Thus, the results should
not be used as the only indicators of eciency and ef-
fectiveness of the new MRT lines.
In order to analyze the impact of the new MRT lines
on accessibility, two scenarios were considered: before
and after. Same data sets on population (based on
Census 2000), industrial and commercial land use (based
on DGP Plans in the 1990s) were used in both scenarios
in order to demonstrate the pure eect of the MRT
system. The Changi Airport MRT Extension was just
completed in February 2002 and the NorthEast line
has not started to operate. As population, land use and
other socio-economic data do not exist for the after
scenario, it is impossible now to analyze the changes in
accessibility which are due to the changes in population,
land use and other socio-economic development.
Despite these limitations, this study demonstrates
that there are signicant spatial variations in accessi-
bility to working population, industrial and commercial
opportunities in Singapore. Urban and transportation
planners need to understand these variations and utilize
the information to make decisions for locating HDB
housing, new transportation infrastructure and eco-
nomic development projects. However, the study aims
to provide an overview of the impact of the MRT system
upon accessibility. The analyses are mainly descriptive
in nature. Future work can be focused on prescriptive
Fig. 12. The accessibility of the HDB towns to commercial opportunities in the DGP zones for the after scenario.
100 X. Zhu, S. Liu / Journal of Transport Geography 12 (2004) 89101
analysis by integrating other transportation modeling
techniques with Accessibility Analyst, which supports
urban transportation planning activities with accessi-
bility as one of their major goals, such as selecting and
evaluating alternative transportation routes, and allo-
cating new services and facilities.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the digital land
and transportation data provided by the Singapore
Land Authority, the Singapore Land Transport Au-
thority and the Singapore Urban Redevelopment Au-
thority.
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