Abstract
A sustainable city must be a safe place for its inhabitants when walking, with the absence of fear of crime being one of its main attributes. Although perceived insecurity is one of the main deterrents of walking activity, this relationship requires some clarification in environments which are walkable and safe, with low crime rates. This article contributes to the evidence for the influence of perceived security on walking activity and, as a novel aspect, also analyzes the effects of perceived security on walking as the preferred travel mode. In order to study this relationship, we use a method that combines non-linear principal component analysis (NLPCA) and a logit model (LM). The data are taken from a survey of university students carried out in the city of Granada. Results show that gender and perceived security have a greater effect on the choice of walking as the preferred travel mode, while location factors have significantly more weight in the explanation of the choice of walking as the most usual travel mode. These findings may be extended to other urban areas and can be of use for the implementation of urban policies aimed at designing the built environment to develop more sustainable cities.
Highlights
Received: 11 January 2022Current urban planning and mobility policies aim to move towards more sustainable forms in the mobility model, promoting walking and other active transport modes in the modal distribution of mobility in urban and metropolitan environments [1]
This study has examined the effect of socioeconomic variables, location and perceived security, based on scientific literature, on the choice of walking as the preferred mode and as the usual mode of travel by a sample of 312 university students from Granada (Spain), by using Non-Linear Principal Component Analysis (NLPCA) and Logit models
The main contributions of this paper for the field of knowledge have shown that perceived insecurity has a higher effect on the chances of choosing walking as a preferred mode than as the usual mode
Summary
Current urban planning and mobility policies aim to move towards more sustainable forms in the mobility model, promoting walking and other active transport modes in the modal distribution of mobility in urban and metropolitan environments [1]. Safety refers to pedestrians being protected from motorized traffic In this sense, it has been found that perceptions of safety for walking and objective built environment variables (e.g., stores within walking distance) were positively related to high levels of walking activity [7,8,9,10]. This paper focuses on the subjective dimension of security, which refers to the perceived risk to personal security and fear of crime, which can be experienced regardless
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