Accessibility in San Salvador, toward daily mobilities evaluation from the social sustainability approach

Abstract

The process described in this paper aims to improve the urban mobility analysis and planning, such as revealing levels of equity and inclusion of a part of the city and identifying deficiencies in the accessibility to urban facilities related to settings systems of land use and transport. Therefore, a Social Sustainability of Urban Mobility (ssum) approach and Open Source Geographical Information System are applied. The methodology sets two urban facilities’ analyses of levels of services to different scales. First, using the Central Places theory, the Metropolitan San Salvador Area is the first scale to analyze. Secondly, it studied the accessibility condition to urban facilities in San Salvador Municipality (Capital city of El Salvador) from Optimal Location Models (olm). Those models allow spatial equity and efficiency indicators. Results are implementing the ssum approach, applying technics of multiscalar analysis, and setting a metropolitan organizational structure which categorizes municipalities by urban facilities’ levels of services. In addition, the characterization of municipal accessibility with proxy indicators to vulnerable groups and identifying areas to take action to improve daily mobility have been developed. Finally, a discussion is opened to identify the following steps to improve this research and strength future planning processes in the scarcity context of the global south.