IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v198y2025ics0965856425001740.html

15-minute city beyond the urban core: Lessons from the urban-suburban disparity in PCR accessibility within the X-minute framework

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Jianying
  • Kwan, Mei-Po
  • Liu, Dong
  • Liu, Yang
  • Wang, Yuxia

Abstract

The 15-minute city concept has garnered increasing attention as a transformative urban planning paradigm to enhance accessibility, sustainability, and livability. However, critical gaps remain in its practical application. Current studies predominantly emphasize urban cores and active transportation modes while neglecting the nuanced challenges of suburban areas and the pivotal role of public transit (PT). This study critically examines the 15-minute city framework through the lens of accessibility disparities, using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing facilities across 10 Chinese megacities as a case study. Our findings highlight that suburban residents face significantly greater accessibility challenges, including longer travel times and reduced access during nighttime, compared to their urban counterparts. The results underscore the limitations of a narrow focus on active modes in the urban core within the 15-minute city framework, revealing that PT schedules and facility operating hours distinctly affect accessibility outcomes in suburban neighborhoods. Solely focusing on 15-minute accessibility will underestimate their impacts. We advocate for an expanded framework that integrates a 15-minute city model for urban cores with a 15-30-45-minute approach for suburban areas, leveraging PT to address diverse transportation needs. Our findings advance theoretical and methodological approaches to the 15-minute city, offering actionable insights for policymakers to develop more inclusive, adaptable, and equitable urban planning strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Jianying & Kwan, Mei-Po & Liu, Dong & Liu, Yang & Wang, Yuxia, 2025. "15-minute city beyond the urban core: Lessons from the urban-suburban disparity in PCR accessibility within the X-minute framework," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:198:y:2025:i:c:s0965856425001740
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2025.104546
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856425001740
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2025.104546?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Poorthuis, Ate & Zook, Matthew, 2023. "Moving the 15-minute city beyond the urban core: the role of accessibility and public transport in The Netherlands," OSF Preprints 4adfq, Center for Open Science.
    2. Leach, Melissa & MacGregor, Hayley & Scoones, Ian & Wilkinson, Annie, 2021. "Post-pandemic transformations: How and why COVID-19 requires us to rethink development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    3. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "OSMnx: New Methods for Acquiring, Constructing, Analyzing, and Visualizing Complex Street Networks," SocArXiv q86sd, Center for Open Science.
    4. Poorthuis, Ate & Zook, Matthew, 2023. "Moving the 15-minute city beyond the urban core: The role of accessibility and public transport in the Netherlands," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    5. Chen, Bi Yu & Cheng, Xue-Ping & Kwan, Mei-Po & Schwanen, Tim, 2020. "Evaluating spatial accessibility to healthcare services under travel time uncertainty: A reliability-based floating catchment area approach," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    6. repec:hal:journl:hal-04898236 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Donald B. Rubin, 2005. "Causal Inference Using Potential Outcomes: Design, Modeling, Decisions," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 100, pages 322-331, March.
    8. Wenwu Zhao & Caichun Yin & Ting Hua & Michael E. Meadows & Yan Li & Yanxu Liu & Francesco Cherubini & Paulo Pereira & Bojie Fu, 2022. "Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the post-pandemic era," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-7, December.
    9. repec:osf:socarx:q86sd_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. repec:osf:osfxxx:4adfq_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Dong Liu & Mei-Po Kwan & Zihan Kan & Jianying Wang, 2022. "Toward a Healthy Urban Living Environment: Assessing 15-Minute Green-Blue Space Accessibility," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-12, December.
    12. Imbens,Guido W. & Rubin,Donald B., 2015. "Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521885881, January.
    13. Dong Liu & Mei‐Po Kwan & Lan Wang & Zihan Kan & Jianying Wang & Jingbo Huang, 2024. "Development of a Chrono‐Urbanism Status Composite Index under the 5/10/15‐Minute City Concept Using Social Media Big Data," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 115(4), pages 554-570, September.
    14. Chacon-Hurtado, Davis & Kumar, Indraneel & Gkritza, Konstantina & Fricker, Jon D. & Beaulieu, Lionel J., 2020. "The role of transportation accessibility in regional economic resilience," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pira, Saeid & Hansson, Lisa, 2025. "Analyzing equity in transport planning using the 15-minute city approach. A case study of Oslo city, Norway," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    2. Rahman, Fabiha & Oliver, Robert & Buehler, Ralph & Lee, Jinhyung & Crawford, Thomas & Kim, Junghwan, 2025. "Impacts of point of interest (POI) data selection on 15-Minute City (15-MC) accessibility scores and inequality assessments," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    3. Jinglong Zhao, 2024. "Experimental Design For Causal Inference Through An Optimization Lens," Papers 2408.09607, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    4. Mark Kattenberg & Bas Scheer & Jurre Thiel, 2023. "Causal forests with fixed effects for treatment effect heterogeneity in difference-in-differences," CPB Discussion Paper 452, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    5. Tianmeng Lyu & Björn Bornkamp & Guenther Mueller‐Velten & Heinz Schmidli, 2023. "Bayesian inference for a principal stratum estimand on recurrent events truncated by death," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 79(4), pages 3792-3802, December.
    6. Silvana Tiedemann & Jorge Sanchez Canales & Felix Schur & Raffaele Sgarlato & Lion Hirth & Oliver Ruhnau & Jonas Peters, 2024. "Identifying Elasticities in Autocorrelated Time Series Using Causal Graphs," Papers 2409.15530, arXiv.org.
    7. Johnston David O. & Ong Cheng Soon & Williamson Robert C., 2025. "Decision making, symmetry and structure: Justifying causal interventions," Journal of Causal Inference, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 1-47.
    8. Wei, Wei & Young, Alex, 2025. "Beyond Russell reconstitution: A re-examination of methodologies for natural experiments," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    9. Giulio Grossi & Marco Mariani & Alessandra Mattei & Patrizia Lattarulo & Ozge Oner, 2020. "Direct and spillover effects of a new tramway line on the commercial vitality of peripheral streets. A synthetic-control approach," Papers 2004.05027, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    10. Rahul Aggarwal & Robert W Yeh & Issa J Dahabreh & Sarah E Robertson & Rishi K Wadhera, 2022. "Medicare eligibility and healthcare access, affordability, and financial strain for low- and higher-income adults in the United States: A regression discontinuity analysis," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(10), pages 1-19, October.
    11. Lu, Qing-Long & Sun, Wenzhe & Dai, Jiannan & Schmöcker, Jan-Dirk & Antoniou, Constantinos, 2024. "Traffic resilience quantification based on macroscopic fundamental diagrams and analysis using topological attributes," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    12. Henrikki Tenkanen & Rafael H. M. Pereira & Elsa Arcaute & Marta C. Gonzalez, 2023. "Advances in geospatial approaches to transport networks and sustainable mobility," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 50(8), pages 2009-2016, October.
    13. F. Swen Kuh & Grace S. Chiu & Anton H. Westveld, 2019. "Modeling National Latent Socioeconomic Health and Examination of Policy Effects via Causal Inference," Papers 1911.00512, arXiv.org.
    14. Pekkurnaz, Didem, 2023. "Causal effect of obesity on the probability of employment in women in Turkey," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    15. Ariel Boyarsky & Hongseok Namkoong & Jean Pouget-Abadie, 2023. "Modeling Interference Using Experiment Roll-out," Papers 2305.10728, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    16. Markku Maula & Wouter Stam, 2020. "Enhancing Rigor in Quantitative Entrepreneurship Research," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(6), pages 1059-1090, November.
    17. Helmut Wasserbacher & Martin Spindler, 2024. "Credit Ratings: Heterogeneous Effect on Capital Structure," Papers 2406.18936, arXiv.org.
    18. Muxuan Liang & Menggang Yu, 2023. "Relative contrast estimation and inference for treatment recommendation," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 79(4), pages 2920-2932, December.
    19. Tenglong Li & Kenneth A. Frank & Mingming Chen, 2024. "A Conceptual Framework for Quantifying the Robustness of a Regression-Based Causal Inference in Observational Study," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-14, January.
    20. Sokolov, Boris, 2025. "Causal Estimands for Policy Evaluation and Beyond," SocArXiv 4vtpk_v1, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:198:y:2025:i:c:s0965856425001740. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.