A comparison of road- and footpath-based walkability indices and their associations with active travel (original) (raw)
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BMC public health, 2016
Physical activity is essential for health; walking is the easiest way to incorporate activity into everyday life. Previous studies report positive associations between neighbourhood walkability and walking but most focused on cities in North America and Australasia. Urban form with respect to street connectivity, residential density and land use mix-common components of walkability indices-differs in European cities. The objective of this study was to develop a walkability index for London and test the index using walking data from the Whitehall II Study. A neighbourhood walkability index for London was constructed, comprising factors associated with walking behaviours: residential dwelling density, street connectivity and land use mix. Three models were produced that differed in the land uses included. Neighbourhoods were operationalised at three levels of administrative geography: (i) 21,140 output areas, (ii) 633 wards and (iii) 33 local authorities. A neighbourhood walkability ...
Journal of Transport & Health, 2016
Methods, theory, and behaviour change Adequate methods for studying the effects of policies and interventions on the interactions between transport and health are important for increasing our understanding of the field. This issue includes a number of papers that have developed or used new methodological approaches, or combined data sources in innovative ways. Many existing methods of measuring physical activity and behaviour are labour intensive or subject to reporting bias and it is encouraging to see novel approaches of reliably quantifying data using new technology. Many of the papers in this issue have used new approaches to address the critical issue of measuring and supporting increases in active travel, a key policy aim for most countries (Hosking et al, 2011).
What kind of built environment favours walking? A systematic review of the walkability indices
2016
Neighbourhood walkability provides important insights if an environment encourages (or discourages) walking. One of the most commonly used approaches to measure neighbourhood walkability is the walkability index. Walkability index is constructed as a composite measure of variables that are considered to influence walking. Typically, these include the characteristics of the built environment, the quality of the walking environment (safety and security) and pedestrian characteristics. However, there is a continued lack of a systematic understanding on the association between built environment variables with walking, which has important implications to effective planning and policymaking. By systematically reviewing publications between year 2000 and 2016, this paper examines the various factors of the built environment associated with walking in developing the walkability index, their combination, and the methods adopted to construct as well as evaluate the index. Results show that th...
Local walkability index: assessing built environment influence on walking
Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series
Walking is a more sustainable transport mode, and governments around the world are trying to deliver highly walkable areas to their people. Due to its importance, walkability has been a research topic in recent years. Vast empirical studies have reported evidence related to the influence of built environment on walking as a major physical activity. Considering the recent literature, this study developed a framework to quantify walkability by applying a set of indicators related to built environment. The indicators were normalised, weighted and integrated into an overall walkability index. The research was conducted on Chaharbagh Street, which is a major and ancient street in the Isfahan metropolitan area, Iran. The proposed framework would be helpful in investigations of whether a specific area is an appropriate option for a car-free plan based on its built environment features. The outcome of the study could be applied to understand issues related to pedestrian infrastructure and t...
Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 2015
There is now a strong body of research that suggests that the form of the built environment can influence levels of physical activity, leading to an increasing interest in incorporating health objectives into spatial planning and regeneration. There have been a number of strands to this research, one of which has sought to develop objective measurements of the built environment using geographic information systems involving measures of connectivity and proximity to compare the relative ‘walkability’of different neighbourhoods. The development of the ‘walkability index’ has become a popular indicator of the spatial distribution of those built environment features that are considered to have the greatest positive influence on levels of physical activity. The success of this measure is built on its ability to capture succinctly correlates of physical activity using routinely available spatial data, which includes using road centre lines to measure connectivity. In this paper we discuss...
Walking and walkability: do built environment measures correspond with pedestrian activity?
Ambiente Construído, 2019
After the emergence of the term “walkability” in the 1990’s, many metrics have been developed with the aim of evaluating the quality of the built environment for pedestrians. More recently, researchers have also sought an association of these metrics with pedestrian behavior: do better sidewalk conditions and their surroundings correspond with higher pedestrian activity? To study the association of the built environment with the share of pedestrian movements, two different indexes, one at the city level (macro) and one at the neighborhood level (micro), were proposed using georeferenced data from São Paulo (Brazil). Once the available built environment and transport-related data were incorporated in a linear regression model, the neighborhood-level index (micro) and the share of pedestrian movements presented a strong positive correlation (adjusted R2 = 0.797). In addition to the contributions to the relationship of walkability scores with data from developing countries, the discuss...
Exploring the Relationship Between Health and Walkability
Open House International, 2019
This study aimed to broaden Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) by including healthy urban performance attributes of the residential neighbourhoods as an additional predictor for walking behaviour. First, the study reviewed the literature on TPB and walkability in residential environments, and then constructed a TPB model based on walkability to set the hypotheses. The study explored the correlations among walkability attributes and walkability behaviour through a survey conducted with residents in Ankara, Turkey (n= 220). To analyse the data, first confirmatory factor analysis and later, structural equation modelling were used. The findings of the study highlighted two aspects of planning for a walkable neighbourhood: (i) a walkability model based on the three constructs of TPB should not neglect the measured and experienced urban performance; (ii) utilizing pedestrian environment for walking as fully as possible requires a collaborative and an experiential approach as well as a multi-parameter decision-making process.
Hall, C.M. & Ram, Y. (2018). Walk score® and its potential contribution to the study of active transport and walkability: A critical and systematic review. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2017.12.018 ABSTRACT The Walk Score® index has become increasingly applied in studies of walking and walkability. The index assesses the " walking potential " of a place through a combination of three elements: the shortest distance to a group of preselected destinations, the block length, and the intersection density around the origin. The Index links a gravity-based measure (distance accessibility), with topological accessibility (street connectivity) measured by two complementary indicators that act as penalties in the final score (linearly expanded in the range 0 to 100). A systematic review of Scopus® and Web of Science® was conducted with 42 journal articles eventually being evaluated. Research was primarily undertaken in North American urban geographies. Analysis of walkability using Walk Score® is inconsistent. Twenty-nine papers do not exclusively rely on Walk Score® as a single measurement of walkability and add further estimates to better capture the multiple dimensions of walkability. In 33 studies the Walk Score® was used as an independent variable, and only once as a mediating-moderating variable. In eight papers (18%) the Walk Score® was a part of a bivariate correlation model. On no occasion was it used as a dependent variable. Results tend to only partly support the validity of Walk Score®. The paper concludes that the Index is best understood as a surrogate measure of the density of the built environment of a specific neighborhood that indicates utilitarian walking potential. Implications for, and potential areas of, future research are discussed. Keywords Active transport; Built environment; Leisure walking; Utilitarian walking; Walk Score®; Walkability Highlights • A critical systematic review of papers using the Walk Score® index. • Identifies use of the Walk Score® index as a variable in studies of walkability. • Evaluates extent to which hypotheses in Walk Score® publications have been supported or not. •Identifies the use of attributes in addition to Walk Score® in studies of walking.
WHAT DEFINES WALKABILITY: WALKING BEHAVIOR CORRELATES
At one point in time, cities grew as compact and vibrant entities focused on the downtown. In these close-knit environments, residents had the ability to walk or bicycle to destinations due to the fact that they lived in close proximity to where they worked and entertained. However, as development patterns slowly changed, cities began to sprawl outward causing an automobile dominated society that has lead to a number of negative effects, including traffic congestion and increased sedentary lifestyles.
Walkability and Physical Activity
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2013
Background: Evidence from developing countries is limited on how income level for a given neighborhood is related to physical activity among its residents.