This repository contains the source code for a bachelor thesis in geography analysing the accessibility of cinemas in Germany.
The role of public transport in social participation: Analysing the accessibility of cinemas in Germany
Cultural activities like visiting the cinema are considered life-shaping and important to an individual’s social life. Not being able to participate in such activities can lead to social exclusion and a diminished quality of life. A pre-requisite of such participation is the ability to reach cultural activities. Accessibility analyses are widely used in geoinformatics to study the spatial distribution of services and their potential of being reached, but they have seldom been used to study leisure destinations.
Since public transport provides more equitable mobility than a private automobile and is less dependent on individual ability than walking or cycling, it is the most suitable travel mode to study accessibility for all. Using a combination of GTFS data and directions routing based on VGI (volunteered geographic information), this analysis investigates normative accessibility and route composition. It focuses on the time component of travel, considering the duration of routes from various residential locations to the cinemas within a municipality. The normative accessibility of cinemas in areas of different regional centrality levels and urbanity are studied and compared. This is followed by a comparison of the accessibility of cinemas for different age groups with varying leisure time availability.