A whole-year approach showing that ambient light level influences walking and cycling

S Fotios,J Uttley,S Fox

doi:10.1177/1477153517738306

Abstract

Many studies have used surveys to investigate the reactions to changes in lighting from people who walk or cycle. An alternative approach is to use objective data, specifically the number of pedestrians and cyclists present under different lighting conditions. Such data have been reported previously using a daylight savings transition approach. This paper presents a different method for analysing the effect of ambient light conditions in which data from the whole year are examined, rather than only the two weeks either side of the biannual daylight savings clock changes. The results confirm that ambient light has a significant impact: For a given time of day, more people walk or cycle when it is daylight than after dark and more people cycle on cycle trails and walk on foot paths after dark when they are lit than when they are unlit. While both methods use an odds ratio approach, which should account for environmental changes other than lighting, the results suggest the daylight savings method of analysis better isolates changes in weather from the effects of ambient light on travel choice than does the whole-year method.

Highlights

IntroductionOne way to investigate whether lighting promotes a feeling of safety amongst pedestrians and cyclists is to ask them how they feel under different levels of ambient light
Note that variations in the frequencies between years are influenced by changes in the number of counters that are installed and periodic loss of counters at different times of the year due to malfunction or scheduled maintenance
This paper examined the effect of ambient light on the frequencies of walking and cycling recorded in one city in the USA

Summary

Introduction

One way to investigate whether lighting promotes a feeling of safety amongst pedestrians and cyclists is to ask them how they feel under different levels of ambient light. It is known, that this approach can be influenced by factors other than lighting. Asking for a rating compels a participant to make an assessment of something they perhaps would not otherwise consider relevant,[2] and evaluations captured using category rating may be prone to stimulus range bias.[14]

Methods

Results

Conclusion