ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of existing connectivity indices, which aim to capture the quality of direct and indirect air transport to society. Transport creates societal value through enabling users to overcome the frictions associated with distance and geography. The impact of spatial location on accessibility can be analysed by comparing accessibility metrics to market potential metrics, which are calculated as destination market size over distance and measure the geographical proximity of a location to destination markets. The concept of centrality was developed in social network theory, where graph theory was used to study topological networks. Closeness-type connectivity metrics focus on analysing connectivity through understanding the number of steps required to reach destinations. A number of changes have been suggested for centrality-type analyses to capture link attributes, with the aim of capturing link quality in post-deregulation air networks. Care should be taken when comparing airport-level correlation coefficients between metrics which capture different dimensions of connectivity.
