One of the key outputs of the GRANULAR project is the dataset "Accessibility Indicators to services at EU scale – 1 km grid indicators", which provides comprehensive information on travel times from every European population cell in a 1 km grid to villages, towns and municipalities across Europe. This approach uses an open and reproducible methodology with the assistance of the open-source routing engine OSRM built on data from OpenStreetMap. The resulting data contains a huge travel time matrix file, which captures up to 512 million estimates of travel times by car between starting points and municipal/city-level centers. Based on this matrix, it is then possible to calculate various accessibility indicators that focus on differences in service availability across regions.

Data is visualized through Data Viewer on the GRANULAR platform, a digital interface designed to explore indicators at local and regional level. Thanks to it, users gain the ability to easily visualize and analyze the level of accessibility of services in rural areas. The methodology behind this process is described in detail through documentation and open R-notebooks, making it transparent, repeatable and extensible, with an emphasis on data quality and ease of updating. Specifically, the cities and municipalities layer from the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission is used, which serves as a proxy for small and medium-sized business headquarters in Europe.

The final visualization is available on a separate page granular-gridview, where the data can be viewed as an interactive map with a 1 km grid, showing travel times and their spatial distribution. This visualization supports an intuitive understanding of spatial differences in accessibility across Europe. The dataset thus provides a robust basis for accessibility analyses and, together with the Data Viewer, offers a practical tool for exploration and interpretation, which is beneficial for both researchers and policymakers.

GRANULAR Digital Platform (platform.ruralgranular.eu) is an open online environment for visualising, sharing and analysing data on rural areas in Europe. It aims to provide researchers, policy makers and the general public with tools to better understand spatial disparities and support data-driven decision-making. The platform makes available a wide range of indicators and datasets covering demographics, services, accessibility and environmental aspects, and offers a user-friendly interface for interactive exploration.