The accessibility of hospital facilities is of great importance not only for maintaining social stability, but also for protecting the basic human right to health care. Traditional accessibility research often lacks consideration of the dynamic changes in transport costs and does not reflect the actual travel time of urban residents, which is critical to time-sensitive hospital services. To avoid these defects, this study considered the city of Kaifeng, China, as an empirical case, and directly acquired travel time data for two travel modes to the hospital in different time periods through web mapping API (Application Program Interface). Further, based on travel time calculations, we compared five baseline indicators. For the last indicator, we used the optimal weighted accessibility model to measure hospital accessibility for each residential area. The study discovered significant differences in the frequency and spatial distribution of hospital accessibility using public transit and self-driving modes of transportation. In addition, there is an imbalance between accessibility travel times in the study area and the number of arrivals at hospitals. In particular, different modes of transportation and different travel periods also have a certain impact on accessibility of medical treatment. The research results shed new light on the accessibility of urban public facilities and provide a scientific basis with which local governments can optimize the spatial structure of hospital resources.
This study aims to analyze the pattern of bank erosion and simulate the physical aspects of vulnerability in the lower Meghna River, Bangladesh using remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS). The physical factors of vulnerability were analyzed using GIS-based Structured Query Language (SQL). A questionnaire survey, GPS survey and field observation survey were conducted for collecting the primary data in the study area. The secondary data were mainly satellite image collected from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) website. Using time series Landsat images (MSS, TM and OLI-TIRS), this study analyzed 36 years of erosion and accretion process in the Mehendiganj Upazila region from 1980 to 2016. The result indicates that an enormous amount of land (4470.47 ha) was submerged by the river and average land loss rate was 124.18 ha/year. The study quantifies the number of vulnerable households beneath the present condition and how much it will be altered after a positive/negative change with the factors of vulnerability related to the households. Simulation data reveals that under the present physical condition, 43.88% of households were identified as severely vulnerable. The output of this study can be used in the classification of vulnerable households and for the improvement of the physical infrastructure development process near the erosion prone areas, also helps to mitigate environmental disaster in the developing countries.