Sidewalk design decision making model based on walking behaviour pattern recognition: proposal validation

Abstract

Urban planners, urban designers, and transportation planners have a long-time investigation about effect of the environment in travel behavior; specifically, ‘walkability’ as one of the core aspects of ‘Travel Behavior’. Evaluation of the factors that influence this marker needs further extension than just the physical boundaries of desirable walking behavior. This research is to examine a comprehensive approach for evaluating walkability based on a combination of the aspects which are conceptual and applicable approaches. The former is to consider assessing the urban physical charecteristics that is responsible for enhancing walking Behavior, and indirectly influences walkability in walking areas. The latter is to consider assessing the influence of residents’ decision making patterns as either generating walking, or encouraging and supporting it within walking trips .While the most successful techniques for incorporating the environment into walking behavior research have lots of lacks and weaknesses, this research intend to develop a new analysis technique base on Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. This research will introduce the modified-Analytical Hierarchy Process (m-AHP) technique which used to sort the walking behavior indicators by a priority order. Finally, it creates a “Decision Making Model” which able to evaluate residents’ preferences on choosing the specific routs to a destination base on the overall quality of sidewalk for walking. This research will create this model to evaluate accurately the performance of various ‘walking behavior’ facets which is under new urbanism development and urban sustainable development. The ‘Sidewalk Design Decision Making Model’ has high potential to be applied in any urban context and neighborhood areas.