IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v186y2024ics0965856424001812.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A participatory mapping approach to capturing perceived walkability

Author

Listed:
  • Roper, Josephine
  • Ng, Matthew
  • Huck, Jonathan
  • Pettit, Christopher

Abstract

We present a novel method for capturing citizens’ views on perceived walkability. Peoples’ decisions to use any transport mode are determined by perceived accessibility, thus perceived walkability is vital to the decision to walk for transport. To date, approaches to understanding perceived walkability, such as detailed ‘walkability audit’ instruments, have been difficult to scale and linked only to respondents’ residential locations. In contrast our research uses an online mapping tool designed to rapidly capture vague knowledge about places. Respondents use a map interface to spray-paint the most and least walkable areas across the city of Sydney, Australia, along with defining the area they regularly walk from home and where they would be willing to walk. They also provide free-text input to explain their responses. This approach enables data collection of respondents’ holistic understanding of the walkability of different areas based on the local knowledge and experience of the city. Pilot results together with qualitative analysis of text submitted in response to open ended questions are presented to demonstrate the feasibility, face validity and potential of the method. A comparison with an accessibility-based walkability index, WalkTHERE, for Sydney is shown. Results are broadly aligned, but the perceived walkability results presented highlight the negative environmental quality of walking near high-traffic roads and the positive aspects of natural and water views, which are not captured in this walkability index. Perceived walkable areas around the home were on average similar in overall area to the common standard of 15-minute buffers, but longer in their longest dimension, and have irregular shapes. Detailed methodology for analysis of the online mapping inputs is provided. This method has potential for rapid yet rich data collection, particularly when used together with a walkability model to understand differences which can point to localised problems with walking environment quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Roper, Josephine & Ng, Matthew & Huck, Jonathan & Pettit, Christopher, 2024. "A participatory mapping approach to capturing perceived walkability," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:186:y:2024:i:c:s0965856424001812
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2024.104133
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856424001812
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2024.104133?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timna Denwood & Jonathan J. Huck & Sarah Lindley, 2022. "Participatory Mapping: A Systematic Review and Open Science Framework for Future Research," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 112(8), pages 2324-2343, November.
    2. Jonny J. Huck & J. Duncan Whyatt & John Dixon & Brendan Sturgeon & Bree Hocking & Gemma Davies & Neil Jarman & Dominic Bryan, 2019. "Exploring Segregation and Sharing in Belfast: A PGIS Approach," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 109(1), pages 223-241, January.
    3. Lättman, Katrin & Olsson, Lars E. & Friman, Margareta, 2016. "Development and test of the Perceived Accessibility Scale (PAC) in public transport," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 257-263.
    4. Saelens, B.E. & Sallis, J.F. & Black, J.B. & Chen, D., 2003. "Neighborhood-Based Differences in Physical Activity: An Environment Scale Evaluation," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(9), pages 1552-1558.
    5. Liang Ma & Jason Cao, 2019. "How perceptions mediate the effects of the built environment on travel behavior?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 175-197, February.
    6. Patrick Buckley & Paul Stangl & Jeff Guinn, 2017. "Why people walk: modeling foundational and higher order needs based on latent structure," Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 129-149, April.
    7. Xuan Zhang & Lan Mu, 2020. "The perceived importance and objective measurement of walkability in the built environment rating," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 47(9), pages 1655-1671, November.
    8. Azmoodeh, Mohammad & Haghighi, Farshidreza & Motieyan, Hamid, 2023. "The capability approach and social equity in transport: Understanding factors affecting capabilities of urban residents, using structural equation modeling," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 137-151.
    9. Griffin, Greg Phillip & Jiao, Junfeng, 2019. "The Geography and Equity of Crowdsourced Public Participation for Active Transportation Planning," SocArXiv 9ghrn, Center for Open Science.
    10. Yi Fan Koh & Ho Huu Loc & Edward Park, 2022. "Towards a “City in Nature”: Evaluating the Cultural Ecosystem Services Approach Using Online Public Participation GIS to Support Urban Green Space Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-19, January.
    11. Liu, Shiqin & Higgs, Carl & Arundel, Jonathan & Boeing, Geoff & Cerdera, Nicholas & Moctezuma, David & Cerin, Ester & Adlakha, Deepti & Lowe, Melanie & Giles-Corti, Billie, 2021. "A Generalized Framework for Measuring Pedestrian Accessibility around the World Using Open Data," SocArXiv cua35, Center for Open Science.
    12. Pot, Felix Johan & van Wee, Bert & Tillema, Taede, 2021. "Perceived accessibility: What it is and why it differs from calculated accessibility measures based on spatial data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    13. Louis A. Merlin & Ulrike Jehle, 2023. "Global interest in walking accessibility: a scoping review," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(5), pages 1021-1054, September.
    14. Anne Durand & Toon Zijlstra & Niels van Oort & Sascha Hoogendoorn-Lanser & Serge Hoogendoorn, 2022. "Access denied? Digital inequality in transport services," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(1), pages 32-57, January.
    15. David Levinson & Hao Wu, 2020. "Towards a general theory of access," Working Papers 2022-01, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    16. Willberg, Elias & Fink, Christoph & Toivonen, Tuuli, 2023. "The 15-minute city for all? – Measuring individual and temporal variations in walking accessibility," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    17. Ryan, Jean & Pereira, Rafael H.M., 2021. "What are we missing when we measure accessibility? Comparing calculated and self-reported accounts among older people," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    18. Millward, Hugh & Spinney, Jamie & Scott, Darren, 2013. "Active-transport walking behavior: destinations, durations, distances," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 101-110.
    19. Timna Denwood & Jonathan J. Huck & Sarah Lindley, 2023. "Paper2GIS: improving accessibility without limiting analytical potential in Participatory Mapping," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 37-57, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. El Murr, Karl & Boisjoly, Genevieve & Waygood, E.O.D., 2023. "Measuring accessibility to parks: Analyzing the relationship between self-reported and calculated measures," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    2. Eric T. H. Chan & Tim Schwanen & David Banister, 2021. "The role of perceived environment, neighbourhood characteristics, and attitudes in walking behaviour: evidence from a rapidly developing city in China," Transportation, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 431-454, February.
    3. Pot, Felix Johan & Koster, Sierdjan & Tillema, Taede, 2023. "Perceived accessibility and residential self-selection in the Netherlands," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    4. Neatt, Kevin & Millward, Hugh & Spinney, Jamie, 2017. "Neighborhood walking densities: A multivariate analysis in Halifax, Canada," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 9-16.
    5. Acheampong, Ransford A. & Asabere, Stephen Boahen, 2022. "Urban expansion and differential accessibility by car and public transport in the Greater Kumasi city-region, Ghana—A geospatial modelling approach," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    6. Ryan, Jean & Pereira, Rafael H.M., 2021. "What are we missing when we measure accessibility? Comparing calculated and self-reported accounts among older people," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    7. Blandin, Lola & Vecchio, Giovanni & Hurtubia, Ricardo & Tiznado-Aitken, Ignacio, 2024. "Car dependency in the urban margins: The influence of perceived accessibility on mode choice," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    8. Pot, Felix Johan & Koster, Sierdjan & Tillema, Taede, 2023. "Perceived accessibility in Dutch rural areas: Bridging the gap with accessibility based on spatial data," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 170-184.
    9. Sukhov, Alexandre & Friman, Margareta & Olsson, Lars E., 2023. "Unlocking potential: An integrated approach using PLS-SEM, NCA, and fsQCA for informed decision making," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    10. Frimpong Boamah, Emmanuel & Miller, Maya & Diamond, Joshua & Grooms, Wes & Hess, Daniel Baldwin, 2024. "The long journey to equity: A comparative policy analysis of US electric micromobility programs," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    11. Hu, Yang & Ettema, Dick, 2023. "Exploring residential dissonance from a household perspective: A gendered examination of resident characteristics in a small Chinese city," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    12. Vafeiadis, Evangelos & Elldér, Erik, 2024. "Correlates of perceived accessibility across transport modes and trip purposes: Insights from a Swedish survey," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    13. Javanmard, Reyhane & Lee, Jinhyung & Kim, Kyusik & Park, Jinwoo & Diab, Ehab, 2024. "Evaluating the impacts of supply-demand dynamics and distance decay effects on public transit project assessment: A study of healthcare accessibility and inequalities," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    14. Anura Amarasinghe & Gerard D'Souza & Cheryl Brown & Tatiana Borisova, 2006. "A Spatial Analysis of Obesity in West Virginia," Working Papers Working Paper 2006-13, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University.
    15. Alvaro Rodriguez-Valencia & Jose Agustin Vallejo-Borda & German A. Barrero & Hernan Alberto Ortiz-Ramirez, 2022. "Towards an enriched framework of service evaluation for pedestrian and bicyclist infrastructure: acknowledging the power of users’ perceptions," Transportation, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 791-814, June.
    16. Tammaru, Tiit & Sevtsuk, Andres & Witlox, Frank, 2023. "Towards an equity-centred model of sustainable mobility: Integrating inequality and segregation challenges in the green mobility transition," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    17. Spielman, Seth E. & Yoo, Eun-hye, 2009. "The spatial dimensions of neighborhood effects," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1098-1105, March.
    18. Kevin Credit & Elizabeth Mack, 2019. "Place-making and performance: The impact of walkable built environments on business performance in Phoenix and Boston," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 46(2), pages 264-285, February.
    19. Mi Namgung & B. Elizabeth Mercado Gonzalez & Seungwoo Park, 2019. "The Role of Built Environment on Health of Older Adults in Korea: Obesity and Gender Differences," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-13, September.
    20. Courtney Coughenour & Hanns de la Fuente-Mella & Alexander Paz, 2019. "Analysis of Self-Reported Walking for Transit in a Sprawling Urban Metropolitan Area in the Western U.S," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-16, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:186:y:2024:i:c:s0965856424001812. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.