MinuteMap

MinuteMap is a web-based mapping tool that shows how well a neighbourhood delivers on the X-minute city promise of reaching the essentials of daily life within a short walk or cycle. It was developed within DREAMS as the DREAMS Accessibility Tool (DAT), the name still used in some of the project's own deliverables, and has since been publicly released under its own name, MinuteMap.

All six DREAMS living labs are loaded into the one public instance at minutemap.online. A planner can pick the area, choose whose needs to model and see at a glance where access is already strong and where it falls short.

The tool is now public. Its source code and technical documentation are linked below.

Open MinuteMap →

What the tool measures

MinuteMap asks one practical question of every part of a neighbourhood, can a resident reach what they need without depending on a car? To answer it, the tool combines the local street network, the location of everyday amenities and the population living in each part of the area, then calculates travel times on foot, by cycle and, where relevant, by public transport.

Rather than checking a single destination, it looks at the whole bundle of amenities a resident draws on, from groceries and a pharmacy to a school, a café or a park. The result is an X-Min City Compliance score for every part of the area, plotted as a map that highlights well-served clusters alongside the more peripheral pockets that remain underserved, which is the pattern that tends to define urban outskirts. Because the method runs on open data, it can be applied well beyond the six living labs.

Two layers of accessibility

The tool currently works in two layers, both drawn from the DREAMS accessibility modelling framework.

Calculated accessibility (Layer 1)

Measures access to amenities using the area's real street network and a standard 15-minute benchmark. Built entirely on open data, so the same analysis can theoretically be reproduced anywhere.

Perceived accessibility (Layer 2)

Refines that picture with what residents themselves said matters, which amenities they need, how many of each and how far they will realistically travel. These choices are captured as selectable preference sets.

Why preferences matter

When the tool reflects residents' own preferences rather than a textbook 15-minute standard, access tends to look lower. People value having more than one option to choose from, and for many everyday errands they accept a shorter walk than the full 15 minutes. Choosing the right preference set is therefore central to reading a map fairly.

How the tool runs

MinuteMap calculates every result locally, in the browser. It loads a precomputed accessibility table for the area and runs the thresholds you set through DuckDB, a database engine compiled to run as WebAssembly, so nothing has to travel to a server while you explore a map. That keeps the tool fast even on a large planning area, and means the analysis runs entirely on the machine in front of you.

Running the tool

MinuteMap follows the same three steps for every area.

Open MinuteMap

Go to minutemap.online and choose the living lab, or other area, you want to study.

Configure a preference set

Use the configure control at the top right to select whose access you want to model, from a neutral 15-minute benchmark to a specific resident group.

Run the analysis

Select run analysis at the foot of the screen to generate the accessibility map.

MinuteMap

Open minutemap.online → to run the tool for any of the six DREAMS living labs, or another area of your own. The source code and technical documentation are on GitHub.

MinuteMap was built within DREAMS, funded through the Driving Urban Transitions (DUT) Partnership. Method and living lab analyses: DREAMS Deliverable 3.1, The DREAMS Accessibility Modelling Framework for Decision Support in X-Minute City Planning (2026). Resident preferences: DREAMS Deliverable 4.2, Perceived accessibility of 15-minute neighbourhoods from residents living in the urban outskirts (2026).