Airport Road Access at Planet Scale using Population Grid and Openstreetmap

A new comparative framework for estimating the road access of airports around the world at high resolution is proposed. While existing studies are spatially constrained and often require hand-collection of data, this framework relies on freely available datasets at planet scale: Population density database Gridded Population of the World and transportation infrastructure database Openstreetmap. Access profiles from the airport-centric view (how many passengers are close to a fixed airport) and the population-centric view (how many airports are close to certain grid cells) are presented as well. Several characteristic values for airport road access are obtained, taking into account the competitive effects among nearby airports. It is found that in Europe and North America, more than 90% of the population can reach at least one airport within 90 minutes. In Southeast Asia, the value is much lower: only 44%. Moreover, an airport typology based on dominating access is derived and it is shown that airport road access types are significantly different throughout countries in the world.