Volume 28, Issue 7 pp. 2025-2043
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Assessing the effects of centroid assignment methods on measuring spatial accessibility

Kyusik Kim

Corresponding Author

Kyusik Kim

Department of Geography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

Correspondence

Kyusik Kim, Department of Geography, Florida State University, 113 Collegiate Loop, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.

Email: [email protected]

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Mark W. Horner

Mark W. Horner

Department of Geography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

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First published: 26 July 2024
Citations: 4

Abstract

In an abstract sense, researchers have assumed that a population-based centroid better represents a given polygon than a purely geometric centroid (GC) because it accounts for the internal distribution of the local population. In specific application contexts, when measuring place-based spatial accessibility, for example, using a GC might be misleading because this practice could overestimate travel costs in large polygons; however, this assumption has not been quantitatively tested. In this article, we examine the role of centroid definition types by comparing the accessibility values of three different centroid estimation approaches. The analysis indicated that, in comparison to population-based centroids, the GC typically underestimated accessibility values, particularly in sparsely populated polygons, and accentuated spatial disparities. The findings suggest that researchers need to pay more cautious attention to the potential impact of centroid methods when measuring spatial accessibility.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

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