Overlapping Accessibility: The Fire Station Example
Background Where should a fire station be located?
At first glance, this sounds like a relatively simple spatial planning question. Put a station where it can reach as many people as possible, preferably within a certain amount of time.
In practice, it is considerably more complicated.
The location of a fire station is not just a question of geometric distance. What matters is how long it takes an emergency vehicle to actually reach a location through the road network. One-way streets, road classes, speed limits, intersections, traffic signals, bridges, gradients, surface conditions, the structure of the built environment and the traffic volume can all influence travel time.
