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BITRE | Report 115The second analysis assumed that the reasonable access distance to regular scheduledair services within Australia was 120 km for each airport, regardless of the airport size(Figure 4.21).The notion of ‘reasonable access distance’ based on the assumptions is subjectiveand arbitrary. What is considered to be ‘reasonable’ by some may not necessarilybe ‘reasonable’ to others. Nonetheless, the two sets of assumptions allow generalassessments of the geographic coverage on the existing air services in regionalAustralia.In the following analyses, reasonable access distance measures a specified straightline distance from an airport. It is assumed that beyond the specified access distance,people were presumed to be unwilling to travel to an airport and consequently donot consider air services to be an accessible mode of transport.MethodologyThe airport catchment analyses were conducted using MapInfo, a GeographicInformation System (GIS) software. It is essentially a geospatial analysis program.First, all airports with designated size and all UC/Ls defined in Census 2001 weremapped.A circular buffer was then computed around each airport. In the first analysis (Figure4.20), a circular buffer of 120 km was created around each large and medium airport,while a circular buffer of 40 km was created around each small and rural airport. Inthe second analysis (Figure 4.21), a circular buffer with a 120 km radius was createdfor each airport.These buffer areas were overlaid on UC/Ls and population data. All UC/Ls locatedoutside the buffers were selected. Statistics were then computed for the total numberof UC/Ls and related populations located within and beyond these buffer areas.4.3.2 Analysis resultsBased on access distances of 40 km and 120 kmIn 2005, there were 181 airports providing air services on regional air routes. Of these,62 were designated as large or medium airports and 119 as small or rural airports(Figure 4.20). The question is, how many of the UC/Ls as defined by the ABS in 2001,fell outside the specified catchment areas?In 2005, there were 1709 UC/Ls in Australia. Based on the assumed access distanceof 40 km/120 km to at least one airport with regular scheduled air services, 1377UC/Ls (80.6 per cent) were located within the assumed access distance and 332 UC/Ls(19.4 per cent) were located beyond the assumed access distance (Table 4.17). Of the332 UC/Ls located beyond the assumed access distance, 279 UC/Ls (16.3 per cent)were in a population size of less than 2000 people, 51 UC/Ls (3 per cent) were inpopulation size between 2000 and 20 000 people and 2 UC/Ls (less than 1 per cent)were in a population size between 20 000 and 100 000 people. The two UC/Ls locatedbeyond the assumed access distance were Shepparton-Mooroopna in Victoria (35 828people) and Bunbury in Western Australia (45 299 people). Both have reasonably largepopulations but were located just outside the assumed access distance to an airport.The closest airport to Shepparton-Mooroopna is Albury. The shortest distance between130