Assessing Sidewalk and Corridor Walkability in Developing Countries

The Role and Importance of a Footbridge Suspended over a Highway in the Opinion of Its Users—Trabzon (Turkey)

In the urban landscape, footbridges appeared along with the development of urbanization through the implementation of more complex spatial structures. The introduction of transport transit to cities or sometimes urban gravity towards the important communication routes imposed their construction in order to ensure pedestrians’ safety and smooth flow of traffic. The aim of the study is to determine how an overpass in the city of Trabzon is used by people of different ages, the security and motivation problem, the possibility of a footbridge, and how an overpass is perceived as a crossing over a highway. The study addresses the problem of safety and motivation related to the use of an overpass by people of different ages and is focused on the perception of an overpass as a crossing over a highway. The overpass connects the northern part of the city with the parking lot and the seaside boulevards in Trabzon. It has been constructed over the road no. D010, also known as the Black Sea Coastal Highway. In total, 124 members of the urban population who used the overpass participated in a questionnaire, which included multiple-choice and open-ended questions. The ‘Semantic Differential Scale’ was also used to evaluate the results. The research revealed that the respondents who chose the road through the overpass for safety in most cases used it relatively rarely (59%). People who used the footbridge every day or frequently marked safety as the reason in 39% of cases only. This means that as pedestrians use the overpass more often, they begin to notice other functional features of the footbridge. The results of the study showed that the overpass was most frequently used for the purpose of going down to the coast (76.0%), although 51.2% reported rarely using the overpass, which showed it was used very little by pedestrians.

Assessing Walking and Cycling around Schools

To encourage students to walk and cycle to school and ensure their health and safety, it is essential to provide safe and operationally efficient infrastructure around schools. This study used an audit tool to assess the infrastructure and environment around schools in the city of Doha, Qatar, with a particular emphasis on active transport (walking and cycling). The aim was to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Twenty-two schools with varied education levels were assessed. Among all assessed categories, active transport items scored the lowest, requiring the most improvements. A detailed analysis was conducted based on school type (elementary, primary, high, and mixed-schools) and revealed similar results except for elementary schools (scored acceptable for active transport). The study revealed that adding bike lanes, installing bicycle parking, and providing good separation of travel modes are the most needed improvements at school sites. In summary, improving active transport could significantly improve the overall quality of the infrastructure around schools in Qatar. Such improvements could greatly encourage more school children to walk and cycle to school instead of being primarily dropped-off and picked up by their parents’ vehicles or school buses.

Pedestrian Attribute Analysis Using Agent-Based Modeling

Crossing a road outside of a crosswalk is a major cause of pedestrian fatalities. The aim of this study was to investigate this type of behavior for different pedestrian attributes in terms of risk and gap acceptance using agent-based modeling techniques. An agent-based model was developed and tested to represent pedestrian behavior in different situations. Different pedestrian attributes were analyzed, including gender, age, type of clothing, carrying bags, using mobile phones, and crossing in a group. The results showed that pedestrians add a positive risk factor to the speed of approaching vehicles before evaluating a gap, then proceed with the crossing decision. The factor for the female pedestrians was smaller in comparison to their male counterparts, which may infer that they are more prone to taking risks during crossing compared to male pedestrians. Another interpretation can be that they have a better ability to discern vehicle speeds and thus a better assessment of the critical gap. Compared to pedestrians crossing individually, the factor was smaller for pedestrians crossing in a group, which can be an indication that pedestrians have a higher sense of safety when crossing as a group. Moreover, the analysis suggested that there is no difference in perception between old and middle-age pedestrians, pedestrians carrying bags or not, and pedestrians using a mobile phone while crossing or not. These results can be useful in evaluating pedestrian safety at midblock crossings and providing a framework for modeling this type of behavior in simulation models.

Critical Gap Comparison between One-, Two-, and Three-Lane Roundabouts in Qatar

A critical gap value of a roundabout is mainly affected by the interactions between the circulating vehicles and vehicles entering the roundabout. These interactions are impacted by many factors, including the number of circulating lanes, the aggressiveness of local drivers, vehicle types, and the number of approaching lanes. Therefore, it is essential to locally investigate critical gap values before conducting any studies to improve capacity and delay at roundabouts. The purpose of this study is to measure and compare the critical gap values for different types of roundabouts in Qatar. More than 10,000 measurements were collected. The results showed that the critical gap values were 2.24 s, 2.55 s, and 2.40 s for the one-, two-, and three-lane roundabouts, respectively. These values are also quite low when compared to values calculated in other countries, which can be an indication of driver aggressiveness and risky behavior. The study is one of the first efforts to compare three types of roundabouts and to understand the difference in operation between them in this region. The results of this study can help engineers, planners, and public agencies to plan, study, and design similar facilities.

Why Don’t People Ride Bicycles in High-Income Developing Countries, and Can Bike-Sharing Be the Solution? The Case of Qatar

Although cycling is increasing in developed regions, such as Europe and North America, high-income developing countries in the Arabian Gulf region still have low cycling activities. Limited research has investigated the barriers to cycling in these countries. In this study, the barriers and motivators in Qatar, a high-income developing country, were investigated. Respondents were asked to report their bicycle usage during the last 12 months. The results indicated that approximately 15% used a bicycle during this period, but only 1.7% bicycled for transportation purposes. The analysis revealed the different barriers to cycling and their relative strengths. The study also compared the perceived challenges of cycling between males and females. The questionnaire results indicated that both groups considered the issues related to the weather conditions, bicycle ownership, lack of paths or connections, and driver behavior as important barriers to cycling. However, the female participants identified clothing, parental consent, and cultural and societal pressure as far more important. When asked about motivators for cycling, the results revealed that improving intersections, adding additional infrastructure facilities, planting trees for shading, affordable bicycles, and campaigns targeting potential cyclists and drivers are needed in order to increase cycling. To better understand how bike-sharing will be perceived if implemented in the future, the feedback was obtained from the participants, and their opinions indicated that there is a great deal of acceptance for this type of service. The outcome of this study can be of benefit to public agencies in developing countries that have the goal of increasing cycling use among their populations.

Neighborhood Walkability and Housing Prices: A Correlation Study

This study aims to examine the relationship between the level of walkability and housing prices in Seoul, Korea. The average transaction price per square meter for each apartment complex was set as a dependent variable and the walkability score was used as an independent variable. This study divided a total of 5986 apartment complexes into areas with high and low housing prices for analysis. Based on the strong spatial autocorrelations of housing prices, this study employed spatial regression models in addition to the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model. Results showed that housing prices positively correlated with the walkability score in areas with low housing prices, whereas no significant association was observed in areas with high housing prices. Additional findings showed that housing prices were associated with building age (−), number of households in the complex (+), slope (−), and greenness (+) in both subsamples. Results also showed that high school quality had a different association with housing prices depending on the subsample (e.g., the sign was positive in areas with high housing prices and no significance in areas with low housing prices). The results herein support public policy proposals relevant to urban planning, environmental design, and housing policies.

Development, Validation, and Application of School Audit Tool (SAT): An Effective Instrument for Assessing Traffic Safety and Operation around Schools

There is a need for a reliable school audit tool with well-defined scales to convert qualitative evaluation of existing school sites into a quantitative assessment in order to help public agencies to improve schools’ safety and efficiency. In this study, a new, simple, and versatile School Audit Tool (SAT) was developed and tested. SAT was formed using a 30-item checklist categorized into four domains: school site assessment, road network assessment, parking/loading assessment, and active transport assessment. The tool was applied on a sample of 22 schools. Then, categorical and item-by-item Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC) were calculated to validate the tool. The results showed acceptable overall test-retest (ICC = 0.919) and inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.843) across all items and domains. SAT’s adaptable framework to assess and compare the safety and efficiency of schools is reliable, easy-to-use, and comprehensive. The tool is also effective in ranking schools and identifying items that may require upgrades or modifications.