Influence of heavy vehicle operation on walkability from pedestrians’ perspective in Krishnanagar Municipality, India

Abstract

The existing constricted road infrastructure in the small and medium old cities of India have limited scope for Heavy Vehicle Movement (HVM), reducing pedestrian movement. This study tries to draw attention towards the need for bringing alterations to the existing infrastructure to support heavy vehicles and develop walkability within Krishnanagar Municipality by using a mixed method approach. In addition to statistical tools, Walkability Index has been measured and AHP-SWOT method has been applied over 10 road links to determine the feasibility of present infrastructure supporting heavy-vehicles. The underlying factors and results were verified with the help of questionnaire survey and field observations respectively. The study finds inadequate possibilities for road expansion and dearth of separate lanes, resulting in Walkability Index to be less than 0.3 at all the major road sections. Different demography of pedestrians mentions effects of level of traffic and the externalities by the heavy vehicles’ operation. Heavy vehicle operation induced traffic congestion and walking space reduction from intrusion of vehicles moving over roadsides foster high distress to immensely demotivate pedestrians from walking. This study propounds that scopes can be generated by engineers, planners and policy makers to turn these small cities into smart cities with manifold utilities by reverbing the road transport, re-designing traffic movement and enhancing walkability with proposed strategies from the knowledge of pedestrians’ perceptions on its strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats.