The utility of street view imagery in environmental audits for runnability

Abstract

Understanding the conduciveness of an environment for running is critical for promoting community wellbeing through physical activity. In-person assessment of these factors is time consuming and costly on a large scale, causing researchers to audit environments virtually using Street View Imagery (SVI). However, no studies have assessed the efficacy of SVI for auditing environments for runnability, which measures the conduciveness of an area for running. This research seeks to determine whether virtual audits of street view imagery are a reliable proxy for in-person environmental scans. A secondary goal of this work was to design a preliminary runnability index based solely on runner studies. In this study, virtual and in-person audits were conducted in 30 locations around Metropolitan Vancouver, Canada, assessing runnability to compare SVI with field observations. Results reported high agreement between both methods for most runnability variables, especially for natural environment characteristics. Virtual scans were less reliable than in-person scans for measuring path continuity and street lighting. We recommend researchers continue to validate virtual audits with in-person scans until SVI technology improves.