Urban Accessibility Indicator 2021 (generalised)

The Urban Accessibility (UA) classification measures the degree of urban influence New Zealand’s urban areas have on surrounding rural areas. It classifies the geographic accessibility of rural statistical area 1s (SA1s) and small urban areas according to their proximity, or degree of remoteness, to larger urban areas. This classification provides increased understanding of the heterogeneity of rural areas and small urban areas and will allow more extensive analysis and reporting. Understanding the degree of urban accessibility or remoteness is important as it has a major influence on the employment sector, accessibility to services, and population composition and change.The methodology uses drive time from an SA1 address weighted centroid to the outside boundary of the nearest major, large, and medium urban area (from Stats NZ urban rural (UR) classification) to classify rural SA1s and small urban areas to one of five categories of accessibility or remoteness. The Open Source Routing Machine service using the OpenStreetMap road network is used to calculate the drive times.Rural SA1s and small urban areas are classified to the following categories:High urban accessibility:0 to15 minutes from major urban areasMedium urban accessibility:15 to 25 minutes from major urban areas or 0 to 25 minutes from large urban areas or 0 to 15 minutes from medium urban areasLow urban accessibility:25 to 60 minutes from major or large urban areas or 15 to 60 minutes from medium urban areasRemote:60 to 120 minutes from major, large or medium urban areasVery remote:more than 120 minutes from major, large or medium urban areasFor more information refer to: Urban accessibility - methodology and classification.The full classification is shown below:111 Major urban area112 Large urban area113 Medium urban area221 High urban accessibility222 Medium urban accessibility223 Low urban accessibility224 Remote225 Very remote331 Inland water332 Inlet333 Oceanic