Dreams Accessibility Tool

The DREAMS Accessibility Tool (DAT) 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.

Each of the six DREAMS living labs runs its own instance of the tool, loaded with that area's street network, amenities, and population. A planner can open the relevant map, choose whose needs to model, and see at a glance where access is already strong and where it falls short.

This page gives a short overview of what the tool measures and how to run it. Full documentation, the repository, and step-by-step tutorials will be added here once they are ready.

What the tool measures

The DAT 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 output is 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.

Running the tool

Every living lab instance follows the same three steps.

Open a living lab

Choose the map for the area you want to study from the list below.

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.

Living lab instances

Haren & Neder-Over-Heembeek

Brussels, Belgium
Open the tool →

Rákosmente

Budapest, Hungary
Open the tool →

Geretsried

Munich region, Germany
Open the tool →

Évry-Courcouronnes

Paris region, France
Open the tool →

Overvecht

Utrecht, Netherlands
Open the tool →

Liesing

Vienna, Austria
Open the tool →

Coming soon

This page is a placeholder for the full tool documentation. The public repository and a set of how-to tutorials, covering preference sets, reading the maps, and adapting the tool to a new area, will be linked here as they become available.

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).