Pedestrian Mobility Research Articles

Choose your own route – supporting pedestrian navigation without restricting the user to a predefined route

ABSTRACT State-of-the-art mobile pedestrian navigation systems often employ GPS or other positioning methods for continuous tracking of users, and thus provide them with in-situ turn-by-turn route guidance along a desired route. However, studies have shown that user experience and acquisition of spatial knowledge decrease due to the “blind” following of such turn-by-turn navigation systems. This paper proposes a novel interface concept for mobile pedestrian navigation systems that provide navigation guidance without restricting the users to a predefined route. Specifically, the proposed novel user interface was based on the concept of the Potential Route Area (PRA), which defines a dynamic area consisting of all potential routes not longer than a certain detour the user is willing to accept. Within that area, the user can freely choose his/her own route and alter it anytime, and can still arrive at the destination within the desired detour tolerance. As a proof of concept, the proposed PRA-based system was then tested against a conventional turn-by-turn navigation system, represented by Google Maps, in a real-world navigation experiment, which revealed that the acquisition of spatial knowledge and user experience were substantially improved when using the PRA-based system. This can be explained by the fact that the PRA-based system provides its users with more freedom in choosing their own route.

Applying a Pedestrian Level of Service in the Context of Social Distancing: The Case of the City of Madrid.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a lot of discussion about keeping interpersonal distance to prevent the virus from spreading. To keep this interpersonal distance, authorities at different levels have taken measures to reduce people’s interactions, such as reducing capacities, curfews, pop-up cycle lanes, temporary pedestrianisation, and lockdowns. Many of these temporary measures have been perceived from a static view. Nevertheless, in a scenario of “new normality” or in the face of a possible new pandemic, the amount of data (big data) generated by different sources, such as sensors, in large cities has extraordinary potential to be used together with tactical urbanism for quick adaptation. The aim of this study was to gain insight into the aforementioned issues by analysing spatio-temporal patterns of pedestrian mobility and developing a variation of the pedestrian level of service measure; the pandemic pedestrian level of service (P-PLOS). This measure provides a dynamic view of pavement capacities according to the interpersonal distance recommendations during the pandemic. P-PLOS was tested in the city of Madrid based on the pedestrian counter data that was provided by the local government through its open data website. We found that the application of P-PLOS, together with street design, allows for knowing where and when it is necessary to take tactical urbanism measures in order to maintain or improve the level of service, as well as where it is necessary to take measures to reduce pedestrian flow.

Feeling a historic city: Porto landscape through the eyes of residents and visitors

PurposeThis paper aims to monitor the urban landscape through the perceptions of residents and visitors, identifying features that cause visual impacts and providing insights for landscape management decision-makers. Captured impressions about the city whilst moving around are important to assess the satisfaction of city residents and city visitors through key elements, such as directional signage, outdoor advertising, restaurants’ outdoor terrace furniture, urban furniture, green spaces, traffic, cleaning, pedestrian areas, visitor flow and conservation of monuments, museums and buildings.Design/methodology/approachA survey was applied in the historical Porto city centre (Portugal) to understand residents’ and visitors’ perceptions of the city landscape and assess the differences between these two groups. Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess the reliability of the constructs (dimensions) of urban landscape. Non-parametric Mann-Whitney test was used to find significant differences in the perceptions of residents and visitors.FindingsThe results suggest significant differences in the perceptions. Residents value more two constructs of the landscape (heritage conservation and transport mobility) whilst visitors value more other two (pedestrian mobility and aesthetic quality). It is showed that residents have a strong sense of place and are concerned with the conservation of historical heritage. Visitors are more concerned with dimensions intrinsically related to tourism.Originality/valueThis research allowed to fill a gap found in the literature, namely, the importance of considering the perceptions of different actors in the urban landscape monitoring. These results are an important contribution for local authorities to understand the value of urban landscape elements from the perspective of residents and visitors. This study opened the possibility of comparing the results from different historical cities centres.

Walking as urban communication: affordances and agency in public space in a semi-lockdown city

ABSTRACT While unlimited pedestrian mobility is usually considered a key characteristic of open democracies and healthy urban communication, a global pandemic has re-organised how public space can be used. By analysing places of interaction, infrastructure, and politics and civil society, this article examines walking in the pandemic city as a form of urban communication. The article explores meanings that young adults give to walking in semi-lockdown Helsinki, Finland by employing a qualitative multi-method approach. The findings underline participants’ emotional and social motivations for walking, highlighting the need to plan for local places of connection. The article argues that an individual’s chance to shape affordances of walking relies on their own walking practices and personal resources instead of understanding walking as a point of planning intervention.

Towards Sustainability: New Tools for Planning Urban Pedestrian Mobility

Background: Since the beginning of the new millennium, sensitivity towards the environment has been spreading globally. In fact, countries are adopting measures to develop new decision support tools that can evaluate the impact of interventions to promote and encourage sustainable mobility. To reduce the levels of pollution related to road traffic, policies that favor multimodal transport alternatives have been strengthened. This involves the combined use of public transport, cycling and walking paths, as well as sharing services where available. Regardless of the type of transport, the pedestrian component remains relevant in cities, even if the infrastructures are often not adequate to accommodate it and conflicts arise that must be managed. It is, therefore, necessary to assess the exposure to risk in terms of road safety. Methods: To this end, the work proposes a forecasting model to estimate the pedestrian flows that load the network. The methodology employs a hybrid approach that appears to better capture the movements of pedestrians. Results: By comparing the results of the model with the real data collected on the study area, satisfactory estimates were obtained. Conclusions: Therefore, this can be an effective tool to help road managers to evaluate the actions to protect vulnerable users.

Modeling Pedestrian Flows: Agent-Based Simulations of Pedestrian Activity for Land Use Distributions in Urban Developments

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.

A Delphi approach to evaluating the success factors for the application of smart mobility systems in smart cities: a construction industry perspective

This study evaluates the critical success factors for smart mobility systems (SM) and assesses its current application level for smart city development using Nigerian as a case study. This study is based on a mixed-method approach (Delphi and quantitative survey). The study revealed seven critical success factors of smart mobility. Furthermore, the findings of this study revealed that factors like sustainable, innovative and safe transportation system, availability of ICT infrastructure, local accessibility of transportation infrastructure, availability of transportation infrastructure (bike, cycling, pedestrian mobility facilities), are the most significant smart mobility success factors. Also, a good consensus was achieved for all the success factors. The Mann Whitney test from the final Delphi result revealed no significant difference in the responses of the two groups of experts. Assessing the level of application of the smart mobility success factors revealed an abysmal application level according to the expert's opinion. This study contributes to the body of knowledge as it reveals the SM success factors that should be considered to achieve a sustainable smart mobility system in a city. The findings of this study will assist cities worldwide in developing smart mobility systems and further improve their competitive advantage. The study concludes that the evaluated success factors are significant in smart mobility systems development and application, based on expert's opinion. However, its level of adoption and application is still low in Nigeria. Therefore, it is recommended that the government and policy decision-makers in urban transportation infrastructure development should use the results from this study, as a scorecard to know lagging areas and factors that need significant improvement and application to achieve a smart mobility system.

Nodes and Streets: Exploring the Pedestrian Mobility Pattern in the Intersection of the Streets in Dhaka City

A viable pedestrian movement has always been a challenging for the urban planners and designers. The modern perception is to create a mobility towards pedestrian environment and at the same time limiting the dependency on vehicular movement. Pedestrians plays an important key role on reshaping nodes and the streets. The mental mapping of a pedestrian guides him to mobilize from one point to another and creates a pattern of an individual. When hundreds of points are created by the pedestrians a new order of network has created and different functions are intervened often to support them. These changes are responsible for the urban fabric to create a certain dimension and a vibrant network of movement. 
 Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh is thriving on vehicular dependency movement but majority of the population are still pedestrians and depends only on public transports. Pedestrian population is dramatically increased due to constant migration of labor incentive market, better employment and fast moving lifestyle. But although the pedestrians are responsible for the vibrant environment due to their mobility pattern, a major upheaval also occur for the unplanned and haphazard street functions on nodal points to serve the pedestrians. In this paper, evaluates the causes of pedestrian movement pattern, illustrate the problems and ineffective functions that creates a node. And finally on the basis of analysis, an outcome of urban node principle has been proposed, serving more effective movements and holistic kind of functional urbanism.

Towards community management to improve pedestrian mobility of the elderly

The main theme of this article focuses on the study of the abandonment of neighborhoods or colonies that make up large cities in terms of the urban conditions that exist between its streets and avenues. In this case we refer to the América Norte neighborhood located in the east of the city belonging to the state of Puebla, Mexico. There are currently no adequate spaces for efficient pedestrian mobility, especially for the most vulnerable sectors such as the elderly, a sector that is the focus of this research. Therefore, the main objective is focused on carrying out a community management process that aims to offer strategies and actions to improve mobility conditions and pedestrian accessibility through citizen participation, all this with the collaboration of the board of directors, street representatives and institutions of the corresponding municipal government. The methodology used is developed from the complex systems from the action-research, in order to analyze and understand the problems from the social and urban environment that allows to broaden the perspective of the needs that reflects the social reality that exists in the neighborhood.

Accessibility and mobility deficiencies of line 2 RUTA, case of San Ramón, Puebla

Deficient accessibility and mobility conditions can create exclusion, which is why, when planning a mass transport system, it is necessary to analyse them at the neighbourhood level in order to guarantee the right to the city and access to public transport. The objective of this article is to show how the deficiencies of urban accessibility in line 2 of the RUTA system, in the case study of the San Ramón colony, Puebla, since the necessary pedestrian infrastructure conditions were not considered, which causes difficulties in pedestrian mobility to access public transport. This situation was confirmed by the disappearance of the urban routes that provided transport services in the colony. The action-research methodology was implemented through successive approaches in the theoretical, physical-spatial and legal spheres. The analysis was carried out through the application of a diagnostic instrument to evaluate urban accessibility, workshops with focus groups to identify the perception of inhabitants and users, interviews with key actors and multilevel matrices of legal instruments, with the aim of making recommendations that include participatory management.

The walking health: A route choice model to analyze the street factors enhancing active mobility

IntroductionThe promotion of walking for transportation is a promising strategy to address not only the traffic bottlenecks or environmental pollution but also to provide health benefits to the patrons. Nevertheless, as enhancing active modes of transportation, including trips to and from shops-is easier in small or medium cities, it is quite a complex task in big urban areas. MethodsIn the framework of the R + D + i DESPACIO project, in 2018, a street and online survey was carried out in the city of Madrid to gather information about different mobility habits, focusing on pedestrian mobility and on the respondents’ perceptions of issues related to mobility on foot. In order to promote more trips on foot, this study analyzed the factors influencing the walking route choice, other than distance. Some respondents also drew on a map the routes undertaken the previous day, indicating the trip purpose. Using the TransCAD software, the real factors that influenced the respondents when walking were obtained. ResultsThe key factors for selecting the walking routes were those linked to attractiveness (e.g., green areas, amenities, tourist attractions, etc.) and accessibility (e.g., obstacles, pavement width). The purpose of the trip did not change much the results, although they were accentuated when the trips were made for shopping. ConclusionsThe applied methodology confirms that pedestrian streets, with green areas or access facility —and, hence, less noisy and polluted — were those enhancing a walking habit, and they were also the ones preferred by the citizens, who appreciated those attributes above the more classic ones of distance and time. Therefore, the street design and the pedestrian routes were found to be the most suitable to achieve healthier cities and citizens.

Perception of Pedestrian to Pedestrian Lane Conditions in Yogyakarta (Case Study: Gejayan Street, Sleman)

Streets and sidewalks are inseparable for users. Users especially pedestrians use the sidewalk as access to move from one to another place. The existence of the sidewalk increases the ease in each person to continue to move in a place that is not too far apart so that it is more efficient and effective. Sidewalks with accessibility and environmental quality that support will make the community in an area. This research is a survey research using a questionnaire. Respondents were randomly selected as many as 100 people around Gejayan street sidewalk. The pedestrian classification is divided based on stationary pedestrians and mobiler pedestrians. Stationary pedestrians are pedestrians who carry out their daily activities around the sidewalk path. Whereas a mobile pedestrian is a pedestrian who uses the sidewalk pathway only as a path to move between places at certain times. The results showed the level of comfort of stationary pedestrians on Gejayan street was 55.74% and the level of comfort of mobile pedestrians on Gejayan street was 55.77%. So that it is obtained if the comfort level of both types of pedestrians are categorized as quite comfortable.

Seniors’ Mobility and Perceptions in Different Urban Neighbourhoods: A Non-Aggregative Approach

In order to highlight the subjective criticality of each neighbourhood to inspire future policy actions, we propose an analysis comparing the perceptions of over-65s residents in the neighbourhoods that make up the Municipality of Genoa. We suggest a new approach based on a quantitative non-aggregative method, Partially Ordered Set (Poset), to measure the levels of satisfaction related to local public transport (LPT), pedestrian mobility, and quality of life in the 25 districts of Genoa. Final data of the analysis come from 401 questionnaires, distributed to residents over 65 years old in the Municipality of Genoa. This approach allows to address the multidimensionality of the phenomenon, as well as its different conceptual spheres. The findings highlight a great variance in local public transport needs perception between different neighbourhoods. In particular, the analysis shows that the types of intervention requested by respondents differ from district to district, so that a common urban transport policy would be ineffective. Some neighbourhoods stress the need for improving pedestrian mobility, whilst local public transport faults dominate in others. There is no significant relation between the three dimensions: Perceived quality of LPT, perceived quality of pedestrian mobility, and perceived quality of neighbourhood. Therefore, interventions should be carefully modulated, according to the specific needs expressed by the residents of each neighbourhood. We conclude that the importance of urban mobility intervention is reduced, whereas the concept of neighbourhood analysis and intervention becomes more relevant.

A Robust Heading Estimation Solution for Smartphone Multisensor-Integrated Indoor Positioning

As a part of Internet-of-Things applications, various smartphone-based indoor location services have considerable commercial value. It is largely agreed that the integration of multiple sensors is the preferable solution for improving the performance of smartphone indoor positioning, thanks to the diversity of built-in sensors. However, heading error remains a challenge for smartphone indoor positioning, especially in complex indoor scenes. This article, therefore, proposes a heading estimation solution to enhance the accuracy and reliability of smartphone indoor positioning. The extended Kalman filter (EKF)-based solution fuses smartphone built-in motion sensors, magnetometers, building map knowledge, and fingerprinting coarse positions from Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. First, the context of pedestrian mobility and scene knowledge is inferred by combining these data. Then, a scene augmentation strategy and magnetic interference online detection method are applied to calibrate the gyro accumulation error and improve the heading estimation accuracy. Additionally, quasistatic and low-dynamic judgments and online calibration are used to mitigate gyro drift. The proposed solution is implemented on a smartphone device and validated in several experiments under natural pedestrian mobility and complex indoor scenarios. Experiments show that the accuracy of heading estimation is improved from 13.1° to 2.0°. The improved heading estimation enhances the accuracy of smartphone indoor positioning from 3.57 to 0.90 m. The proposed solution is applicable to real location-based service scenarios.

Effect of Built Environment Factors on Pedestrian Safety in Portuguese Urban Areas

This paper identifies and analyzes variables that influence pedestrian safety based on the definition of models of pedestrian crash frequency for urban areas in Portugal. It considers three groups of explanatory variables, namely: (i) built environment; (ii) pedestrian infrastructure, and (iii) road infrastructure, as well as exposure variables combining pedestrian and vehicular traffic volumes. Data on the 16 variables considered were gathered from locations in the counties of Braga and Guimarães. The inclusion of pedestrian infrastructure variables in studies of this type is an innovation that allows for measuring the impacts of the dimensions recommended for this type of infrastructure and assessing the implementation of policies to support the mobility of vulnerable users, especially pedestrians. Examples of such variables are unobstructed space for pedestrian mobility and the recommendable distance separating regulated crossings. Zero-Truncated Negative Binomial Regression Models (ZTNB) and Generalized Estimation Equations (GEE) are used to develop crash prediction models. Results show that in addition to the variables identified in similar studies such as carriageway width, other statistically significant variables like longitudinal slope and distance between crosswalks have a negative influence on pedestrian safety. On-street parking places, one-way streets, and the existence of raised medians have an opposite contribution to safety.

Exploring the determinants of older adults’ susceptibility to pedestrians’ incidents

Older pedestrians (65 years and above) are among the most vulnerable road users. As the number and proportion of older adults grows in many countries, and awareness of the benefits of active travel becomes increasingly evident, it behooves researchers to further investigate the safety of older pedestrians. This study contributes to the literature by examining the factors that influence older adults’ susceptibility to pedestrian incidents (falls incidents and pedestrian-vehicle collisions). To this end, a sample of older adults living in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, South Ontario, Canada was surveyed. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), to identify several latent factors that are significantly associated with older adults’ involvement in pedestrian incidents. The results revealed that the factors that affect older adults’ susceptibility to pedestrian incidents are level of difficulty while walking, fear of falling, and crossing evaluation capability. In contrast, level of pedestrian confidence and level of risk-taking crossing behavior are not among the significant factors. It was also found that older pedestrians aged 65–75 years, males, and those who are still working had a greater probability to be involved in pedestrian incidents. These findings shed light on some key constraints of older pedestrians, and the extent to which each factor could improve their safety. This information, in turn, can be used by transportation authorities in prioritizing their plans, policies, and programs towards improving the safety and mobility of older pedestrians.

The stock-flow-service nexus of personal mobility in an urban context: Vienna, Austria

Sustainable resource use calls for substantial changes to existing infrastructures, which lock societies into current resource use patterns. Urban mobility is a case in point: existing material stocks of infrastructure and vehicles require large amounts of materials and energy for maintenance and operation in order to provide mobility services, thereby causing considerable emissions. Understanding the stock-flow-service nexus of urban mobility is crucial for achieving progress towards absolute reductions of resource use and emissions. In this article, we investigate personal mobility in an urban context - Vienna. We use stock-driven material and energy flow analysis to quantify mobility stocks and flows for four different modes of mobility: pedestrian, bicycle, public transport and motorized individual traffic (MIT). We quantify material flows for maintenance, expansion, as well as primary energy use and emissions linked to personal mobility within city territory and compare a number of stock-flow-service indicators. Public transport was found to deliver most mobility services (38%), when services were measured as trips. Pedestrian mobility showed the lowest stock intensity of services while using less energy and generating lower emissions per service than any other mobility mode. Trips crossing the city border showed high shares of motorized individual traffic (62–63%). Traffic surfaces dominated material requirements of mobility and are mainly (78%) used by MIT. We conclude that considering stock-flow-service relations can support prioritizing future urban mobility planning, highlight the importance of infrastructure-related measures in doing so and the need for better monitoring especially of mobility service indicators.

Urban Transportation Mode Detection From Inertial and Barometric Data in Pedestrian Mobility

This paper presents a novel urban transportation mode detection (TMD) method based on inertial and barometric data. To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first time that a 3-axis accelerometer, a 3-axis gyroscope, and a barometer are combined for TMD purposes. One contribution was to build and share an optimized TMD dataset in terms of duration (44 hours), number of participants (34), sensor placements (on-foot, waist-attached and in the trouser’s pocket) and considered transportation modes (7). To infer transportation mode information, we tackle two classification scenarios: still, walk, bike, tramway, and bus, on the one hand, and still, walk, bike, elevator, stairs and public transport on the other hand. One major finding was that TMD classification accuracy has been widely overestimated by adopting the familiar randomized cross validation approach. According to the latter, the accuracy of our non-optimized classifiers ranged from 90% to 99%. However, few of them were accurate when the test samples were drawn from data of five unknown subjects. By selecting features in a personalized manner and by studying the importance of the placement of sensors, we realized that the latter significantly impact the performance of TMD models. Thus, we present here two robust TMD classifiers that show respectively an average accuracy of 75.63% for the first scenario and 79.41% for the second scenario using a foot-mounted sensor

Contextual analysis of pedestrian mobility in transport terminals

Data acquisition using security cameras for pedestrian tracking and counting is inherently inaccurate due to limited video quality and the dynamics of pedestrian mobility. In this article we explore how specific patterns of pedestrian behavior in transport terminals can improve accuracy in tracking and counting. We show the effectiveness of our proposed techniques using data from the New York Grand Central Station. The proposed tool improves the accuracy of pedestrian labeling based on information about the dynamics of pedestrian mobility in the specific context of transport terminals.

Towards sustainable pedestrian mobility in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia: A case study

A new public transportation network is currently being constructed in Riyadh city. Public buses and Riyadh metro are expected to be available for the passengers shortly. Based on the Saudi Vision 2030, the government directed billions of dollars to rehabilitate the infrastructures and sidewalks to support the national transformation to sustainable mobility. With that in mind, understanding the individual’s choice of mobility mode is necessary to adopt appropriate planning and management policies. In this paper, a comprehensive assessment study has been carried out to examine the individual’s travel patterns in Riyadh city through a case study of the Prince Sultan University's (PSU) community and evaluate the pedestrian environment's quality around the campus. Individuals' travel patterns were analyzed using a web-based survey addressed to the PSU community, including; Students, Faculty, and Staff. Moreover, the quality of the pedestrian's environment was in-situ evaluated based on well-defined indicators. The results of this assessment addressed the factors influencing the pedestrian mode choice and highlighted the barriers that may delay the transformation to sustainable mobility. Based on this study's conclusions, several recommendations have been proposed to promote the transformation to sustainable mobility in Riyadh city.