A dynamic two-step floating catchment area method for measuring spatial accessibility of day-care centers

This paper puts forward a dynamic 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 dynamic 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 day-care centers in the province East Flanders in Belgium. The results show significant spatial differences in accessibility between the static and dynamic version of the 2SFCA. They highlight the importance of giving heed to more complex travel behavior in cases where the need for detailed accessibility calculations is apparent.