A commuter-based two-step floating catchment area method for measuring spatial accessibility of daycare centers

This paper puts forward a commuter-based version of the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method, which has gained acceptance in studies on spatial health care accessibility. Current implementations of the 2SFCA method are static in that they consider centroid-based night-time representations of the population. The proposed enhancement to the 2SFCA approach addresses this limitation by accounting for trip-chaining behavior. The presented method is illustrated in a case study of accessibility of daycare centers in the province East Flanders in Belgium. The results show significant spatial differences in accessibility between the original and commuter-based version of the 2SFCA (CB2SFCA). They highlight the importance of giving heed to more complex travel behavior in cases where the need for detailed accessibility calculations is apparent.