1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

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

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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. References
Copernicus Urban Atlas:
European Settlement Map:
Imperviousness layer:
Access to green urban areas:
Universities: and
Air quality data:
Access to passenger flights:
Access to public transport:
Urban accessibility and transport performance: