Comparing pedestrians’ needs and behaviours in different land use environments
Highlights
► More infrastructural compatibility factors rated as important in Industrial vs. Residential environments. ► Reasons for walking and not walking are mainly distance-related. ► Multinomial logit mode choice model was used to predict propensity of walking.
Introduction
Walking relates to everyone’s daily life and it is the capability that allows an infant to extend his/her exploring scope while also affecting an elderly’s mobility. No matter which mode(s) of transport one chooses to complete his/her daily journeys, he/she still needs to do some walking. In the hot and humid weather of Singapore, walking is more suitable for short-distance trips, typically the first and last mile trips that connect with the public transport, in particular the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system. In order to encourage more people to take up walking for the first/last mile trips to/from the MRT, the first step is to understand the various factors of the walking decision. The relative importance among these factors is also important in terms of prioritisation of measures to create a more walkable environment.
It would be interesting to find out how do the walking decision and the importance of infrastructural compatibility factors differ under different land use environments. For instance, Mixed land use is thought to provide more visual variety and interest for pedestrians (Forsyth et al., 2008, Frank et al., 2010). Hence, will the built environment setting in an industrial area change the needs of walking as compared to that in a Residential area? The availability and serviceability (competition) of other modes of transport also affect one’s decision to walk. If a bus service is economically available and comes at reliable and regular frequencies, one may choose the bus service instead of walking. The decision to walk is therefore a multi-factor choice.
Section snippets
Factors affecting one’s decision to walk
Many factors are known to influence one’s decision to walk. Upon reviewing the past literature and considering local operating conditions, the selected factors (in no sequential order) are as follows:
Methodology
A total of nine transit (rail) stations were selected to conduct intercept surveys during evening peak periods (5–730 pm). These stations were selected based on their surrounding land use, using 2 km by 2 km grid squares – equivalent to about 1 km radius of comfortable walking distance from the transit station (Koh et al., 2011). In each square grid, One Map (Singapore Land Authority, 2012) was used to identify land uses (industrial, commercial, residential), as well as major public buildings.
Survey findings: factors and reasons related to walking
The average importance levels of the 12 factors are represented in the spider web diagram for each land use type (see Fig. 2). The Mixed land use spiral is found to shadow the Residential spiral closely. Only three factors: Rain shelters, Traffic accident risk and Stairs/slopes were found to be significantly more important in Residential areas compared to Mixed land use areas (Table 2). Eight out of the 12 factors were rated as significantly more important under the Industrial setting as
Mode choice model of first/last mile trips
The propensity of one choosing a particular mode of transport to travel between transit stations and origin/destination can be modelled using polytomous logistic regression. Since the dependent variable is a nominal response, “proc catmod” is suitable to use to model the mode choice using generalised logits approach (SAS, 2012).
The predicted probabilities of choosing the different mode of transport for the first/last mile trips can be derived from the following equations:
Conclusions
The Mixed land use spider web spiral (of the 12 factors) is found to follow the Residential spiral closely while the Industrial spiral has a larger perimeter compared to the rest. The factors, Distance, Stairs/slopes, Traffic accident risk, Detour, Crowded walkways/roadways, Security, Number of crossings/delays and Directional signs were rated significantly more important, suggesting that walking infrastructure is comparatively lacking along these aspects for the Industrial environment. The
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the student helpers in assisting to conduct the survey. The authors are also very grateful to the editor and the review team for their keen observations and useful remarks. The content of the paper and any opinions expressed are the sole responsibility of the authors.
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