IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirb/v31y2004i6p805-828.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Human Movement Behaviour in Urban Spaces: Implications for the Design and Modelling of Effective Pedestrian Environments

Author

Listed:
  • Alexandra Willis

    (School of Psychology and Sociology Napier University South Craig, Craighouse Road, Edinburgh EH10 5LG, Scotland)

  • Nathalia Gjersoe
  • Catriona Havard
  • Jon Kerridge
  • Robert Kukla

Abstract

Despite a burgeoning research effort directed at the design and modelling of effective urban spaces for pedestrians, remarkably little is known about how pedestrians actually negotiate urban spaces. This paper reports the results of a video-based observational study aimed at exploring: (1) individuals' movement preferences within uncluttered environments, in particular: (a) desired walking speed, (b) microscopic position preferences, and (c) interpersonal distances between companions while walking; and (2) the ways in which these variables might be influenced by the various personal, situational, and environmental factors that characterise the context in which pedestrians move. The microscopic movement trajectories of 2613 participants were investigated in a covert, video-based observational study of three mixed-use (residential/retail) urban environments close to the city centres of Edinburgh and York, United Kingdom. Age, gender, level of mobility, group size, time of day, and location were found to have significant effects on movement preferences across the range of locations studied. We concluded that a number of influential factors affect how humans negotiate urban spaces, and suggested how these factors may be taken into account in attempts to design and model effective urban spaces for pedestrians.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandra Willis & Nathalia Gjersoe & Catriona Havard & Jon Kerridge & Robert Kukla, 2004. "Human Movement Behaviour in Urban Spaces: Implications for the Design and Modelling of Effective Pedestrian Environments," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 31(6), pages 805-828, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:31:y:2004:i:6:p:805-828
    DOI: 10.1068/b3060
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/b3060
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/b3060?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
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Roja Ezzati Amini & Christos Katrakazas & Constantinos Antoniou, 2019. "Negotiation and Decision-Making for a Pedestrian Roadway Crossing: A Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-24, November.
    2. Lihua Xu & Huifeng Xu & Tianyu Wang & Wenze Yue & Jinyang Deng & Liwei Mao, 2019. "Measuring Urban Spatial Activity Structures: A Comparative Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-17, December.
    3. Hu, Yanghui & Zhang, Jun & Song, Weiguo, 2019. "Experimental study on the movement strategies of individuals in multidirectional flows," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 534(C).

    More about this item

    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:sae:envirb:v:31:y:2004:i:6:p:805-828. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.