Pedestrian environment and route choice: evidence from New York City and Hong Kong
Highlights
► We model pedestrians route choice in New York City and Hong Kong. ► Route choice is affected by pedestrian environments besides route distance. ► We quantify the monetary value of key pedestrian environmental attributes. ► Route choice modeling is able to assess the intangible environmental attributes. ► Route choice modeling does not work well for a network with few route alternatives.
Section snippets
Background
Walking has become an increasingly popular topic as more people realize that it is not only essential for sustainable mobility but that it also has direct implications beyond transportation, including public health and social capital (Leyden, 2003). Improving walkability may be an effective solution for mitigating congestion, promoting environmental conservation, encouraging physical activity, reducing obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and boosting community livability (Blanco et
Literature review
Because pedestrians move more slowly than vehicles, they are more aware of and sensitive to their surroundings (Rapoport, 1987, Sauter and Tight, 2010). Accordingly, numerous features in the physical and social environment, many of which are difficult to quantify, such as building design, signage, and streetscape, can affect the experience and behavior of pedestrians. The assessment of these features is a fundamental question for policy initiatives that aim to encourage walking activities by
Research design
The objective of this research is to test the feasibility of route-choice modeling to quantify the perceived utility of the pedestrian environment as revealed by pedestrians’ actual behaviors. The focus is not on developing better route-choice models, but on applying existing models to a relatively new field. Neither is it on the thorough understanding of the pedestrian environment and walking behavior, but on testing the potential of a new approach to understand the environment and behavior.
Case studies: Hong Kong and New York City
We chose two mixed neighborhoods, one in Hong Kong (HK) and one in New York City (NYC), as case studies because they share some common features in terms of high density, prevalent walking on streets, and diverse pedestrian environments, although they differ in terms of cultural background, resident lifestyle, and streetscape design.
For NYC, the neighborhood is Greenwich Village on the west side of Lower Manhattan. The study area is approximately 0.4 square miles and is bounded by West Houston
Data collection and route choice modeling
To develop a route-choice model, we must first identify decision makers (pedestrians), obtain their decisions (chosen route), generate considered alternatives (non-chosen routes), collect route attributes, and define the model specification.
Analysis results
We start with the pedestrians’ subjective rating of key pedestrian environmental features and then compare it with the results from their actual decisions revealed by the route choice models. Pedestrians were asked to rate their general satisfaction with the pedestrian environment, and the importance of the seven features on a scale of 1–7 (7 is the most important and 1 is the least important): length of walk, familiarity with the environment, number of street crossings, street-crossing waiting
Conclusion
The assessment of the pedestrian environment is critical to designing proactive policies to improve walking alternatives and encourage walking activities. Current assessment methods either overlook the quantification of the utility of environmental features or rely on pedestrians’ subjective preferences. This study proposes an assessment method based on pedestrians’ route choices that is able to quantify the utility of the pedestrian environment from revealed preferences. The results indicate
Acknowledgement
This research project was funded by the “Managing World Cities” initiatives of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Hong Kong.
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