Beyond the Boundary: New Insights from Inside the Space-Time Prism - Space-Time Integration in Geography and GIScience - page 185

Chapter 12
Beyond the Boundary: New Insights from Inside
the Space-Time Prism

Ying Song and Harvey J. Miller

12.1 Introduction

Time geography is a perspective that focuses on the spatial and temporal constraints
on an individual's ability to participate in activities in a given environment
(Hägerstrand 1970 ). A core concept is the space-time prism : this captures spatial
and temporal constraints on potential mobility and activity participation. The prism
demarcates all locations that a mobile object can occupy in space and time given:
(1) the locations of origin and destination anchors; (2) the earliest departure time at
the origin and the latest arrival time at the destination; (3) the maximum velocity
for moving in space; and (4) the minimum required time for conducting stationary
activities (Lenntorp 1977 ). Advances in geospatial science and technologies have
greatly improved the realism of the space-time prism. GPS and other location-aware
technologies (LATs) such as cellular phones and radiofrequency identification
(RFID) chips enable researchers and practitioners to collect high-resolution mobility
data. A number of database management systems (DBMS) such as Oracle, IBM
DB2, PostGIS and ESRI Spatial Database Engine have extensions that support
geospatial and temporal applications (e.g., Abraham and Roddick 1999 ; Egenhofer
1993 ;Lin 2012 ; Shaw and Wang 2000 ). These technologies facilitate the wide
application of the space-time prism in transportation science, urban planning, public
health and other human sciences that are concerned with individuals' mobility
and accessibility (Bodzina and Cirucci 2009 ; Dong et al. 2006 ; Ettema and
Timmermans 2007 ;Kwan 1998 , 1999 ; Miller 1999 ; Neutens et al. 2007 ; Nicholls
and Shafer 2001 ).

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