A Literature Review of Parameter-Based Models for Walkability Evaluation (original) (raw)
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A comparison of three methods for assessing the walkability of the pedestrian environment
Journal of Transport Geography, 2011
This paper presents the results of a research project conducted in the UK designed to increase understanding of the factors which influence levels of walking and pedestrian route choice. It describes a number of techniques that were used to assess the pedestrian environment from a pedestrian's perspective. These techniques included a computer based tool developed using stated preference surveys to determine the relative values of a range of factors in the pedestrian environment; an on-street survey that was designed to investigate values and attitudes towards different attributes of the pedestrian environment along a route; and finally an 'on the move survey' where pedestrian volunteers were interviewed while walking along the route in order to get an actual account of their experiences as they walk. A case study is then used to show the benefits and disadvantages of using these different techniques and compares results for a pedestrian route in the City of Leeds in the UK. The results indicate that there were a number of pedestrian attributes considered important by pedestrians when walking including pavement cleanliness, safe crossing places, good connectivity and sense of security. The three approaches complement one another and have highlighted in different ways that the walking experience is affected by the cumulative impact of multiple interactions (both positive and negative) as people walk in the pedestrian environment.
2014
Development of an evaluation criterion to assess pedestrian facilities in urban environment using walkability measures Utility-related walking includes household, transportation, or occupation purpose walking and that has now become a solution in sustainable transport systems. Presence of facilities for pedestrians is at vital importance in both utility-related walking and recreational walking. Walkability is an idea of quantifying the safety and desirability of walking routes. It is defined in many ways under different disciplines. The most commonly used definition is: the extent to which the built environment is friendly to the presence of people living, shopping, visiting, enjoying or spending time in an area. This research discusses the major pedestrian facilities involved in utility-related walking and proposes a scoring model to evaluate the pedestrian facilities in urban environment using-walkability‖ measures. The proposed model can be used to evaluate pedestrian facilities in road links to compare different road links and to identify deficiencies in a given road. At present walkability is evaluated using qualitative measures that are very subjective. Existing methods of evaluating walkability were carefully studied and the limitations and weaknesses were identified. In the proposed model, a score as a percentage is finally obtained from the evaluation where 100% means a perfect road to walk and 0 means the worst condition for walking. This could be used in detail to compare two or more roads. The facilities evaluated in the proposed model are: sidewalks, crosswalks, pedestrian amenities and aesthetics, disability infrastructure, and security from crimes. Methods to evaluate as many features of pedestrian facilities were proposed and validated. The features of sidewalks are: presence & continuity of raised sidewalks, obstructions, effective width of sidewalks, modal conflict, surface condition of sidewalks, and Albedo of the paving material. The features of crosswalks are: availability of crosswalks, and delay at signalized crossings and un-signalized crossings. Availability of pedestrian facilities including, benches, shades, bus halts with seats, pedestrian information boards, proper street lighting add scores to a road link. Aesthetics is assessed as a qualitative factor. Tactile paving, uniformity of the paved sidewalks, cross slopes, curb ramps, drainage, and overhead obstructions are the features under infrastructure for the disabled people.
Evaluation of the pedestrian infrastructure using walkability indicators
2012
The promotion of pedestrian safety, mobility and convenience is an important step to raise sustainable mobility in urban areas. This study presents the development and implementation of indicators that evaluate pedestrian infrastructure in urban streets. The study area was six selected roads in the city of Volos, Greece. The roads were characterized as main, collector or local urban arterials, located inside or close to the center of the city. Four suitably trained authors walked across the streets, took pictures and charted the pedestrian infrastructure for each side of the street and each road segment and crosswalk. The auditors’ team included three undergraduate students as the team members and a PhD candidate as the team leader. After this step, the auditors created a drawing of the pedestrian infrastructure and counted indicators for road segments, street corners and crosswalks. The road segment indicators were split into two categories: the infrastructure ones and the street f...
Evaluation of Walkability and Pedestrian Level of Service
Engineering Tools and Solutions for Sustainable Transportation Planning
Due to decreasing resources, living in urban regions focus on sustainability in many aspects, including transportation. Sustainable transportation encourages non-motorized modes of walking and cycling as well as public transit (which also relies on walking while accessing a station), as well. However, walking as a mode is still a big mystery itself that needs further attention and research effort especially in the evaluation part. So far, the planners have discussed the concepts of walking and walkability, while engineers have mostly focused on Pedestrian Level of Service (PLOS). The scope of the problem is reflected in the diversity, and consequent inconsistency, in the available PLOS methods, which is one of the problems addressed in this chapter. The second and the bigger problem is the gap between the planning and engineering approaches in evaluating PLOS and walkability producing no consensus or clear relationship between the two, even though they overlap greatly.
Sustainability
Active modes can play a key role in the transition toward sustainable urban mobility, and transport systems should be designed to support and incentivize them. For instance, walking accessibility to main urban centralities is a factor to pay attention to, as well as the way in which pedestrians perceive the characteristics of the infrastructure and the surrounding environment should also be considered. This study proposes a method for computing a walkability index of the paths for accessing transport nodes (e.g., railway station). The index is based on individuals’ perception of walkable infrastructure features (e.g., kerbside width, presence of urban furniture, greenery, etc.). It allows having a more realistic view of the catchment area of the node and to identify policies for improving pedestrian accessibility. The method has been validated using an ad-hoc survey in the area of the Milano Rogoredo railway station (Italy). The map of the estimated walkability indexes is consistent...
The objective of this paper is to study the walkability index and to rate the areas based on safety, security, and convenience to the Pedestrian environment. This study evaluates and reports the existing condition of Pedestrian facilities in the area considered and its analysis from both qualitative and quantitative point of view, comparing it with a study of various standards stipulated by HCM and IRC parameters which could be used for the design of Pedestrian facilities. The survey and analysis are done in city Davangere, Karnataka. To get the overall measure of Pedestrian Walkability Index of the city, it is classified into two different areas i.e. Commercial and Shopping areas, are selected for the study. The Pedestrian Walkability Index (PWI) survey consists of 2 components i.e. Field walkability survey and a Pedestrian interview survey. The Pedestrian LOS and adequacy of footpaths was carried out based on the guidelines of HCM 2000 and IRC:103-1988 respectively. In the selected areas, the length of the stretch and width of the available footpath was measured. The Pedestrian volume counts were taken during peak hours and the average pedestrian walking speed was computed manually. From these data, the Pedestrian flow, density is calculated and the LOS is obtained. And based on the Pedestrian volume in the areas, the adequacy was checked and the recommended footpaths widths were proposed as per the recommendations of IRC. In the widths of the selected areas in Davangere city, only 16.7% are inadequate and the remaining 83.3% is adequate.
Developing walkability index from walker and non-walker perception
2017
The benefits of walking have recently inspired considerable research on the relationships between pedestrian choices and numerous built environment factors. These relationships are then elaborated using walkability indices for the mesothe micro-levels. Despite important advances in micro-level research, the walkability concept is based chiefly on the perspective of the walker. The views of the potential walker and non-walker are thus given insufficient attention. This paper employs micro-level analysis to bring in the often overlooked non-walker perspective. This perspective can be understood both from the factors enabling as well as barriers inhibiting walking. Therefore, the proposed walkability index may be used as a tool to analyze facilities that not only to serve walkers but those that encourage non-walkers to change their behavior. Changing behavior will be critical to maximizing the benefits associated with walking.
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2017
The indexes for walkability proposed so far refer generally to the closest amenities and public transport stops and the existing network structure. The weights of the attributes do not reflect the independently measured preferences of the users and residents. Design attributes such as the location and type of crossings and walkway design features are usually surveyed in walkability audits. However, such attributes are usually not considered when pedestrian walksheds or other accessibility-based walkability indexes are calculated. Nevertheless, these design attributes are very relevant for actual planning decisions. The proposed walkability index can be behaviorally calibrated, has been implemented as a geographic information system tool, and is published as open source software. The pedestrian accessibility tool allows the evaluation of existing and future urban plans with regards to walkability. The tool calculates Hansen-based accessibility indicators with the use of a customizabl...
Transport Reviews, 2019
Numerous methodologies measuring walkability have been developed over the last years. This paper reviews the Walkability Index (WI) literature of the last decade (2009-2018) and highlights some limitations in the current approaches. Only a few studies have evaluated walkability in Latin America, mainly in big cities but not in medium and small-sized cities in the region, which present their own urbanisation dynamics, security issues, sidewalk invasion problems, and poor planning. Furthermore, most WIs in the literature use objective mesoscale variables to assess walkability in a given area. This paper contributes to filling these gaps by generating new evidence from a medium-sized city in Latin America to question if characteristics of the built environment encourage walking trips, as found in the literature, are transferable among regions. The study also proposes a novel index comprised of microscale and mesoscale built environment variables to assess walkability using virtual tools and considering users' perceptions. The WI estimation relies on ranking probability models. The results of the case study suggest that subjective Security and Traffic Safety are the most crucial factors influencing walkability in these kind of cities, which is different from what is found in the literature from cities in developed countries where Sidewalk Condition and Attractiveness are the most important factors. Security appeared to be strongly associated with a subjective dimension, represented by the fear of crime or perceived risk for crime, instead of the actual occurrence of crimes. This result evidences the importance of the physical attributes of the real world and how they are captured, judged, and processed by pedestrians. Then, regional transferability of WIs needs to be done carefully. Finally, results in this paper highlight the importance of microscale built environment characteristics in the WI formulation in these cities. Results are in line with other research in some cities of the region, which found that microscale variables such as pavement quality and presence of obstacles on the sidewalks are relevant components to promote walkability.
Development and application of the Pedestrian Environment Index (PEI)
Journal of Transport Geography, 2014
The objective of this work is to develop a new and easily computable measure of pedestrian friendliness for urban neighborhoods that makes the best use of the available data and also addresses the issues concerning other models in use. The Pedestrian Environment Index (PEI) is defined as the product of four components representing land-use diversity (based on the concept of entropy), population density, commercial density, and intersection density. The final PEI is bound between 0 and 1, and uses data that typically are readily available to planners and metropolitan planning organizations (MPO). The results of this method are region-specific; they are comparable only between the zones within the given study area. As a case study, the city of Chicago is analyzed at the sub-traffic analysis zone (sub-TAZ) level. The results agree closely with the expectation of pedestrian friendliness across different parts of the city. Possible extensions are also listed, including a further study to determine statistical relationships between the PEI and common socioeconomic characteristics. The method could also be further improved should more types of data become available.