Geographic Information System-Based Model of Outdoor Thermal Comfort: Case Study for Zurich

Abstract

The importance of walking, the most basic form of transportation, is growing. Climate change and the associated warmer temperatures could reduce comfortable walking distances drastically. There is a clear need to better understand how outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) and walking interact. In this work, thermoregulation of the human body is modeled with the two-node model to determine the influence of the microclimate on pedestrians’ OTC. First, the impact of the current microclimate in Zurich on the route choice of pedestrians is analyzed. No significant correlation is found between simulated OTC of walking a particular route and route choices for all trips, but results for longer trips indicate a possible influence of OTC. It is pointed out that the same assessment could be done for other regions, and the results could contribute to more accurate pedestrian modeling. Second, a tool is developed that can estimate OTC-corrected walking distances from any location. The tool is applied to the current climate and future climate scenarios. The results show that, in the future, OTC of pedestrians in Zurich will be severely decreased. Further, the tool can detect where there is potential for and, through its accessibility approach, quantify improvements to the built environment citywide. Future work should focus on enhancing physiological input parameters to the model. This work provides a novel use of the two-node model for walking subjects in a citywide assessment.