SPN: Smart Pedestrian Net. A smart approach to evaluate built environment attributes and their influence on walkability; fundamentals, assessment and application

Abstract

Walking is the oldest and simplest form of human mobility. Everyone is a pedestrian and people walk for many reasons. Many people walk to public transport, some walk directly to local destinations, to go shopping and do other business, while many people walk just for recreation. Whatever the type of trip, walking is usually the first and last mode used, providing an important link between land use and motorised transport modes. Therefore, walking as a principal or a secondary mode of transport is an essential part of mobility. Over the last 100 years, urban environments have been designed for vehicle traffic flow. As the urban population increased, cities built sophisticated road systems to facilitate traffic flow for millions of vehicles. However, walking has been ignored and excluded to a certain extent from urban planning. Only recently have walking policies appeared on the agenda in European cities. Many local authorities have undertaken a range of activities to stimulate walking as a daily transport mode due to potential environmental and health benefits. Creating walkable environments starts with the built environment. However, many questions need to be effectively addressed by planners and decisionmakers. Specifically, how to assess the conditions provided to pedestrians? How to provide high-quality walking facilities? How to develop effective walking policies? What will the best approach be in a specific city? This book summarises part of the work developed within the context of the research project SPN ? Smart Pedestrian Net. Specifically, this book provides a comprehensive approach for evaluating 23 built environment and streetscape attributes that influence the decision to walk and the satisfaction one gets from walking. The proposed SPN approach offers a clear and systematic framework to help planners and decision-makers in evaluating pedestrian conditions and in developing walking policies. The guidelines provided in this book were developed considering the cities of Porto and Bologna but can serve as a reference for evaluating pedestrian conditions in other similar medium-sized European cities. The assessment guide is accompanied by a practical implementation of the walkable conditions in Porto and Bologna. The goal was to provide more detailed and technical information on how to objectively evaluate a selection of built environment and streetscape attributes. The guidance offered in this book is meant to be of real practical use to local authorities and researchers in assessing pedestrian environments and in helping planners to design policies to improve walkability. Furthermore, the book could be of use to developers of new standards in aspects of urban development. This book should be considered as work in progress with the potential to encourage debates. Based on received feedback, further revision and refinement is planned for future work.