| The recent proposal to adopt the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA) as the national standard remoteness measure has generated substantial interest. This project addresses the comparative advantages of ARIA over RRMA, and the implications of substituting ARIA for RRMA. The RRMA methodology is a seven-scale classification of remoteness, founded on the Statistical Local Area (SLA). ARIA interprets remoteness as accessibility from 11,338 inhabited towns across Australia to four levels of urban service center categorised on the basis of population size. It is an unambiguously geographical approach to defining remoteness. The ARIA index has a number of advantages over the RRMA index; these include flexibility, clarity, precision and stability over time.
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