To enable pedestrians to be given full consideration when decisions about new roads or road improvement schemes are made, techniques are required to enable the number of affected pedestrians to be estimated and any consequent change in pedestrian amenity to be forecast. The main objectives of the research reported in CR 148 were to identify the environmental factors contributing to pedestrian amenity, and to develop methods of assessing and predicting amenity. In a companion report (May, Hopkinson and Turvey, 1991) (see C 81 S (IRRD 841860) methods of counting and predicting numbers of pedestrians were examined. Surveys were carried out in fifteen urban centres across England and Scotland, chosen to cover a range of environmental conditions. Interview surveys were conducted with 450 pedestrians in one street in each centre, and the same street in each centre was videoed for two days (9.00am - 5.00pm) to provide a permanent record of pedestrian activity and traffic flows. Manual pedestrian counts were made, and site characteristics noted (e.g., shops, offices, transport facilities). At each centre two further streets were selected with which the main survey street could be compared, and manual traffic counts were made in these streets. At two of the urban centres home interviews were conducted with 200 residents. Pedestrians were asked to rate the environmental conditions of the street in which they were interviewed, and in the comparison streets, using 12 semantic differential scales (7 point). Eight of these scales were concerned specifically with traffic conditions. An additional scale asked for an overall rating of the interview street. Stepwise multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the relation between assessments of the environmental conditions (the dependent variable) and the traffic and pedestrian conditions as observed from the video recordings (the independent variables). The overall rating of the street was related to the bus flow, the heavy goods vehicle flow (over 16 tonnes), and the pedestrian pavement flow. The urban centres for the two home inverview surveys were chosen from those where the on-street interviews had suggested that environmental problems occurred, and addresses were chosen from the catchment area determined from the street interviews. Residents were asked to rate the streets on the same scales as were used in the street interviews. At the first location the residents rated the street conditions more favourably than the pedestrians, but at the second location residents' and pedestrians' ratings were similar. Overall, residents at the first location appeared to be mildly discouraged by traffic and environmental conditions, but those who chose not to visit the street were much more strongly influenced by shopping facilities and problems of access. At the second location there was little evidence of concern over environmental conditions. Those who chose not to use the street were influenced by shopping facilities and access problems, and the existence of alternative facilities elsewhere. For related work see IRRD 813156, 812968, 812969 and 812970 (see B 27686).
Samenvatting