Measuring Rural Access Index via Spatial Information Science

Abstract

Citizens living in rural areas needs to access social, cultural and economical services via transportation infrastructures, where these aspects are defined in sustainable development goals in detail. This criterion is a responsibility for governments to ensure equality in opportunity among the citizens. Within this paper, Rural Access Index (RAI)was measured and analyzed by Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Systems (GIS)techniques to observe the status of this sustainable development goal in Istanbul. Spatial information science should be used in order to monitor and measure this metric as it provides rapid and cost-effective spatio-temporal data. Results show that nearly forty percent of the rural population do not have access to main roads. Via the proposed system, the index could be monitored continuously that could give a quantitative impact for policy makers.