Abstract
Pedestrian activity is a cornerstone for urban sustainability, with key implications for the environment, public health, social cohesion, and the local economy. Therefore, city planners, urban designers, and decision-makers require tools to predict pedestrian mobility and assess the walkability of existing or planned urban environments. For this purpose, diverse approaches have been used to analyze different inputs such as the street network configuration, density, land use mix, and the location of certain amenities. This paper focuses on the location of urban amenities as key elements for pedestrian flow prediction, and, therefore, for the success of public spaces in terms of the social life of city neighborhoods. Using agent-based modeling (ABM) and land use floor space data, this study builds a pedestrian flow model, which is applied to both existing and planned areas in the inner city of Hamburg, Germany. The pedestrian flows predicted in the planned area inform the ongoing design and planning process. The flows simulated in the existing area are compared against real-world pedestrian activity data for external validation to report the model accuracy. The results show that pedestrian flow intensity correlates to the density and diversity of amenities, among other KPIs. These correlations validate our approach and also quantify it with measurable indicators.
Highlights
The ability to walk to places is the cornerstone of urban sustainability, with major impacts on the environment, public health, social cohesion, and the local economy [1]
Acknowledging pedestrian flow as the cornerstone for sustainable localities, which factors might influence pedestrian movement? The literature has identified consistent evidence pointing at urban morphology and land use distribution as the main drivers of pedestrian activity, strongly correlating them
The choice of ABM lies on the focus on an agent scale, in which agents represent individThis contribution utilizes agent-based models (ABM) to simulate pedestrian flow
Summary
Contemporary urban policies are defining development targets towards resilience, sustainability, walkability, and people-centered approaches. A steady flow of people to places translates as potential demand for goods and services, and a critical mass of customers to maintain local businesses feasibly Novel contemporary practices such as e-commerce offer the most cost-efficient way to satisfy basic needs, placing physical consumption closer to socio-symbolic motivations [1,8]. The procedural evolution of the social practices of consumption, and amenities, services, and economic activity, are directly related to the physical transformation of urban spaces [9] and affect the social fabric and its footprint at the local scale. Close monitoring, understanding, and potentially managing these dynamics is essential in the establishment of livable and cohesive neighborhoods, especially in the context of the development of new urban areas, to ensure and foster socially, ecologically, and economically sustainable urban spaces
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