Geospatial data for cities and FUAs: state of play and opportunities Lewis Dijkstra and Hugo Poelman DG Regional and Urban Policy Analysis and Policy Conception Unit NUAC meeting, June 2019

The role of geospatial data for city statistics Geospatial data help filling gaps in data availability, for instance in areas like mobility, access to services, land use and environmental topics Identify data sources covering (potentially) all cities/FUAs Develop and implement methods producing comparable results Identify gaps in data availability and promote a strategy towards a better provision of the required geodata

Geospatial data producing city statistics Currently available Land use and land cover Buildings and sealed areas Access to green urban areas Universities Air quality data Regional accessibility Access to public transport Urban accessibility Forthcoming data and/or perspectives for future production

Land cover / land use Surface by land use / land cover class Residential urban areas Non-residential built-up (industrial, commercial) Other urban Green urban areas … Copernicus Urban Atlas All FUAs and cities Produced every 6 years

Land cover / built-up areas Built-up areas: surface dedicated to buildings JRC European Settlement Map (ESM) Automated classification of satellite imagery Complete territorial coverage Including all cities and FUAs Will be mainstreamed as Copernicus data product

Land cover Sealed areas: artificial (hard) surfaces (buildings, roads and other transport infrastructure,…) EEA Copernicus Imperviousness layer Derived from satellite imagery Complete territorial coverage Produced every 3 years

Access to green urban areas Surface of green urban areas that can be reached within 10 minutes walking Copernicus Urban Atlas, road network and intra-urban population estimates All FUAs and cities Can be produced every 6 years

Universities Students to population ratio DG EAC European Tertiary Education Register (ETER) Covering higher education institutions in almost all EU countries Updated every year

Air quality data Aggregated from measurement stations data European Environment Agency, based on Member States' reporting Coverage of major cities and FUAs Annual updates

Regional accessibility by car Population accessible within 1h30 by car compared to population within 120 km from the point of departure Road network, GEOSTAT population grid Complete territorial coverage Update cycle depending on grid production and road network updates

Regional rail accessibility Population accessible within 1h30 by rail compared to population within 120 km from the point of departure Rail timetables, station locations, GEOSTAT population grid Complete territorial coverage Update cycle depending on grid production and rail timetables availability

Access to passenger flights Passenger flights accessible within 90 min. by road Flight data by airport (Eurostat) Road network GEOSTAT population grid Annual update of flight data Complete territorial coverage

Access to public transport Number of public transport departures within walking distance Timetables, road network, intra-urban population estimates By urban centre, city or FUA Coverage depends on the availability of open machine-readable timetable data

Urban public transport Vehicle km travelled in urban centres or cities; average speed of public transport vehicles Public transport timetables and location of stops By urban centre, city of FUA Coverage depends on the availability of open and machine-readable timetable data

Urban accessibility and transport performance Population accessible within 15, 30 or 45 minutes (by public transport, walking, cycling,…) compared to population within a certain radius around the point of departure Access to services can also be assessed Road network, public transport timetables and stops location, intra-urban population distribution A selection of urban centres and/or FUAs is covered Coverage depends on timetable data availability and on computational burden of origin/destination calculations

Budapest: public transport Accessibility: Population within 30 minutes by public transport, combined with walking Proximity: Population within 7.5 km radius around the point of departure Transport performance: Population within 30 minutes travel / population within 7.5 km radius x 100

Some future opportunities Extension and enhancement of accessibility analysis (more cities, additional indicators) Assessing road congestion and its influence on accessibility and transport performance (urban and regional) Proximity and accessibility of public services, in particular schools and hospitals Urban wastewater treatment levels

Conclusion Combinations of currently available geospatial data already provide a wide range of indicators at urban centre, city and FUA level Further developments and mainstreaming require Improved availability and harmonisation of (open) data, in particular from authoritative sources More data on the location of (public) services Regular production of relevant Copernicus products Data fit for analytical purposes (e.g. routing on a road network) Regular production of grid-based population statistics

References Copernicus Urban Atlas: https://land.copernicus.eu/local/urban-atlas European Settlement Map: https://land.copernicus.eu/pan-european/GHSL/european-settlement-map Imperviousness layer: https://land.copernicus.eu/pan-european/high-resolution-layers/imperviousness Access to green urban areas: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/information/publications/working-papers/2018/a-walk-to-the-park-assessing-access-to-green-areas-in-europe-s-cities Universities: https://www.eter-project.com/ and https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/information/publications/regional-focus/2018/access-to-universities-in-the-eu-a-regional-and-territorial-analysis Air quality data: https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/air/explore-air-pollution-data#tab-air-quality-status Access to passenger flights: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/information/publications/regional-focus/2013/measuring-accessibility-to-passenger-flights-in-europe-towards-harmonised-indicators-at-the-regional-level Access to public transport: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/information/publications/working-papers/2015/measuring-access-to-public-transport-in-european-cities Urban accessibility and transport performance: https://www.itf-oecd.org/benchmarking-accessibility-cities