IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i9p4869-d543954.html

An Application of the Walkability Index for Elderly Health—WIEH. The Case of the UNESCO Historic Centre of Porto, Portugal

Author

Listed:
  • Fernando Alves

    (Research Centre for the Territory, Transports and Environment, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal)

  • Sara Cruz

    (Research Centre for the Territory, Transports and Environment, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal)

  • Sophia Rother

    (Fachhochschule Erfurt, 99085 Erfurt, Germany)

  • Tino Strunk

    (Fachhochschule Erfurt, 99085 Erfurt, Germany)

Abstract

This work provides a follow-up to the article Walkability Index for Elderly Health: A Proposal, published in 2020. Previous research linked the quality of public spaces, walkability characteristics relevant to older people, and the direct health benefits of walking for the same target group. The present article, on the other hand, aims to validate the conceptual design of the walkability index for elderly health (WIEH), developed by the authors in the previous study, by applying it to a study area located in the historic center of Porto, Portugal. Therefore, public spaces and the pedestrian network are analyzed according to their suitability for older people’s walkability. Presented in a visual format, the results show that only a few paths within the study area were strongly suited to older people, and emphasize the impact of existing steep slopes on the quality of the pedestrian network.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernando Alves & Sara Cruz & Sophia Rother & Tino Strunk, 2021. "An Application of the Walkability Index for Elderly Health—WIEH. The Case of the UNESCO Historic Centre of Porto, Portugal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-18, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:9:p:4869-:d:543954
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4869/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4869/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antonio Menor-Campos & Jesús Claudio Pérez-Gálvez & Amalia Hidalgo-Fernández & Tomás López-Guzmán, 2020. "Foreign Tourists in World Heritage Sites: A Motivation-Based Segmentation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-15, April.
    2. Fernando Alves & Sara Cruz & Anabela Ribeiro & Ana Bastos Silva & João Martins & Inês Cunha, 2020. "Walkability Index for Elderly Health: A Proposal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-27, September.
    3. Beverly J. Bass & Margaret Livingston, 2019. "Automotive retrofits in historic city centres and their potential effects on their walkability: a comparison of San Luis Obispo, CA, USA and Bath, England, UK," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 290-304, March.
    4. Auttapone Karndacharuk & Douglas J. Wilson & Roger Dunn, 2014. "A Review of the Evolution of Shared (Street) Space Concepts in Urban Environments," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(2), pages 190-220, March.
    5. Fritz Akhmad NUZIR & Bart Julien DEWANCKER, 2016. "Redefining Place For Walking: A Literature Review And Key-Elements Conception," Theoretical and Empirical Researches in Urban Management, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 11(1), pages 56-76, February.
    6. Kaniz Fatima & Sara Moridpour & Chris De Gruyter & Tayebeh Saghapour, 2020. "Elderly Sustainable Mobility: Scientific Paper Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-17, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kaniz Fatima & Sara Moridpour & Tayebeh Saghapour, 2022. "Measuring Neighbourhood Walking Access for Older Adults," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-21, October.
    2. Fernando Fonseca & Escolástica Fernandes & Rui Ramos, 2022. "Walkable Cities: Using the Smart Pedestrian Net Method for Evaluating a Pedestrian Network in Guimarães, Portugal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-23, August.
    3. Daniella do Amaral Mello Bonatto & Fernando Brandão Alves, 2022. "Application of Walkability Index for Older Adults’ Health in the Brazilian Context: The Case of Vitória-ES, Brazil," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-25, January.
    4. Enrico Porfido & Cynthia Pérez & Pablo Martínez & Beatriz Puértolas-Gracia & Aida Ribera & Laura Mónica Pérez, 2025. "Assessing Older Adults’ Walkability in the Surroundings of Primary Care Centers: A Three-Case Study from Barcelona," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-20, July.

    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. Kaniz Fatima & Sara Moridpour & Tayebeh Saghapour, 2022. "Measuring Neighbourhood Walking Access for Older Adults," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-21, October.
    2. Daniella do Amaral Mello Bonatto & Fernando Brandão Alves, 2022. "Application of Walkability Index for Older Adults’ Health in the Brazilian Context: The Case of Vitória-ES, Brazil," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-25, January.
    3. Varameth Vichiensan & Kazuki Nakamura, 2021. "Walkability Perception in Asian Cities: A Comparative Study in Bangkok and Nagoya," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-22, June.
    4. Juseung Lee & Ducksu Seo, 2022. "Influences of Urban Bikeway Design and Land Use on Bike Collision Severity: Evidence from Pohang in South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-14, July.
    5. Tomasz Wojciech Szulc & Grzegorz Krawczyk & Seweryn Tchórzewski, 2021. "Models of Delivery of Sustainable Public Transportation Services in Metropolitan Areas–Comparison of Conventional, Battery Powered and Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Drives," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-14, November.
    6. Haris Murwadi & Bart Dewancker, 2017. "Study of Quassessment Model for Campus Pedestrian Ways, Case Study: Sidewalk of the University of Lampung," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-16, December.
    7. Kaniz Fatima & Sara Moridpour & Tayebeh Saghapour, 2021. "Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Elderly Public Transport Mode Preference," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-15, April.
    8. Limpasirisuwan, Natcha & Champahom, Thanapong & Dangbut, Adisorn & Watcharamaisakul, Fareeda & Jomnonkwao, Sajjakaj & Ratanavaraha, Vatanavongs, 2025. "Extending UTAUT2 for elderly high-speed rail adoption: Incorporating novel health and transportation independence moderators in an urban-rural comparative analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 933-959.
    9. Enrico Porfido & Cynthia Pérez & Pablo Martínez & Beatriz Puértolas-Gracia & Aida Ribera & Laura Mónica Pérez, 2025. "Assessing Older Adults’ Walkability in the Surroundings of Primary Care Centers: A Three-Case Study from Barcelona," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-20, July.
    10. José Valverde-Roda & Miguel Ángel Solano-Sánchez & Minerva Aguilar-Rivero & Gema Gomez-Casero, 2021. "Segmentation of Foreign Tourists Based on Emotional Perception—The Case of Granada, Spain," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-16, September.
    11. Urbanek, Anna & Acedański, Jan & Krawczyk, Grzegorz, 2023. "Depopulation or ageing? Decomposing the aggregate effects of projected demographic changes on urban transport systems," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    12. Joana Gonçalves & Ricardo Mateus & José Dinis Silvestre & Ana Pereira Roders, 2020. "Going beyond Good Intentions for the Sustainable Conservation of Built Heritage: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-28, November.
    13. Tiziana Campisi & Socrates Basbas & Giovanni Tesoriere & Mirto Trouva & Thomas Papas & Iva Mrak, 2020. "How to Create Walking Friendly Cities. A Multi-Criteria Analysis of the Central Open Market Area of Rijeka," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-20, November.
    14. Ajjima Soathong & Douglas Wilson & Prakash Ranjitkar & Subeh Chowdhury, 2019. "A Critical Review of Policies on Pedestrian Safety and a Case Study of New Zealand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-27, September.
    15. Haeryung Lee & Seung-Nam Kim, 2019. "Shared Space and Pedestrian Safety: Empirical Evidence from Pedestrian Priority Street Projects in Seoul, Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-16, August.
    16. Yongcheng Wang & Yiik Diew Wong & Kelvin Goh, 2021. "Perceived importance of inclusive street dimensions: a public questionnaire survey from a vision(ing) perspective," Transportation, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 699-721, April.
    17. Kaja Pogačar & Andrej Žižek & Peter Šenk, 2022. "Mapping the Transformation Potential of Streets Using Urban Planning Parameters and Open Spatial Datasets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-21, July.
    18. Marsden, Greg & Docherty, Iain & Dowling, Robyn, 2020. "Parking futures: Curbside management in the era of ‘new mobility’ services in British and Australian cities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    19. Daniela A. Lessa & Carlos Lobo, 2021. "Mobility and Urban Centralities: An Analysis Based on the Motorized Flows Attraction in Belo Horizonte/State of Minas Gerais/Brazil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-19, September.
    20. Zhang, Yimeng & Cats, Oded & Azadeh, Shadi Sharif, 2025. "Dynamic preference-based multi-modal trip planning of public transport and shared mobility," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:9:p:4869-:d:543954. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.