Abstract
Increasing private car ownership and car dependency has led to a low share of walking as an active mode as well as congestion, air pollution, and health problems in developing countries. This paper aims to identify and compare the impacts of a selection of socio-economic, travel-related, and built environment variables on walking likelihood and respondents’ sensitivity to the walking distance, both for discretionary and mandatory trips. The analysis drew its origin from 14,463 responses acquired through an extensive travel survey conducted in the city of Qazvin, Iran. The estimated binary logit coefficients show people’s heterogeneity in the walking behavior for discretionary and mandatory trips. The results report a higher likelihood of walking on mandatory trips at almost all distances than the discretionary ones. Furthermore, investigating individual heterogeneity in different trip distances reveals that people aged less than 14 are more likely to choose walking on mandatory trips longer than 2400 m. Besides, those aged 25–44 years old or above 65 have less tendency to choose walking on mandatory trips with distances of 2000–2400 m and 800–1200 m, respectively. These findings are almost different on discretionary trips; compared to other age groups, people aged 15–24 years are less likely to choose walking on discretionary trips with a distance of 800–1200 m. Moreover, in trip distances of 1200–1600 m, the elderlies have a greater tendency to choose walking compared to other age groups. Some implications for more sustainable mobility in human-oriented urban environments are also presented and critically discussed.
Highlights
The increasing urban sprawl, car ownership, dependency, and the mechanization of urban life have affected people’s tendency to walk [1–4]
Determining the explanatory factors affecting pedestrians’ mobility and how these factors affect walking likelihood have always been of interest to authorities
This paper identified the strongest predictors of walking likelihood by emphasizing trip distance and differentiation between the factors in mandatory and discretionary trips
Summary
The increasing urban sprawl, car ownership, dependency, and the mechanization of urban life have affected people’s tendency to walk [1–4]. Low non-motorized share has resulted in various problems, including congestion, longer travel time, air, and noise pollution, overweight due to diminished physical activity, and staggering economic costs [5,6]. According to the most recent data from the World Health Organization, about 4.2 million people died because of air pollution and the resulting disease. More than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight which over 650 million were obese in the world. 25.8% of people are obese, and 27,000 people died because of air pollution in Iran [7,8]. This has gradually highlighted the necessity of encouraging people to choose active travel modes, such as cycling and walking.
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