On the Relationship between Space-Time Accessibility and Leisure Activity Participation

Abstract: Understanding how accessibility shapes participation in leisure activities is central to promoting inclusive and vibrant urban life. Conventional accessibility measures often focus on potential access from fixed home locations, overlooking the constraints and opportunities embedded in daily routines. In this study, we introduce a space-time accessibility (SPA) metric rooted in the capability approach, capturing feasible leisure opportunities between home and work given a certain time budget, individual transport modes, and urban infrastructure. Using high-resolution GPS data from 2,415 residents in the Paris region, we assess how SPA influences total travel time and leisure participation, measured as the diversity of leisure activity locations. Spatial patterns show that most individuals-especially active transport users-choose destinations aligned with their SPA-defined opportunity sets, underscoring the metric's validity in capturing capability sets. Structural equation modeling reveals that SPA directly fosters leisure diversity but also reduces travel time, which in turn is associated with lower diversity. These findings highlight the value of person-centered, capability-informed accessibility metrics for understanding inequalities in urban mobility and informing transport planning strategies that expand real freedoms to participate in social life across diverse population groups.