Walk & Feel – a New Integrated Walkability Research ApproachWalk & Feel – a New Integrated Walkability Research Approach

Walking is healthy, promotes social contacts and is a basic requirement of mobility. Nevertheless, between 1995 and 2013/14 the modal share of walking in Austria declined from 27% to 17%. However, walking is abig unknown factor in the overall transport system, as it is statistically often unrecorded. This also expresses an underestimation of the importance and positive effects of walking in the overall transport system. The term “walkability” is often used to describe the attractiveness of walking which not only includes the path quality but also attractive and animating conditions to walk. The project presented in this paper aims to develop a methodology, which should improve the conditions for pedestrians on their daily walks and increase the quality of life. A major requirement for this purpose is a comprehensive and high-quality data basis for assessing the quality of walking – leading to more insights into the needs of pedestrians. Biosensoric technology to gather physiologic data about people’s reaction concerning walking infrastructure will support this new approach. The approach will join subjective and objective methods to create a new view about perception and emotions of pedestrians. ... mehrBy this means it will evaluate spatial conditions like street design, built environment, perceived safety to achieve “walkability” or a more walkable infrastructure. This contribution introduces the topic, presents the state of research concerning walkability as well as a concept of a theoretical framework of the project. This includes a methodology to collect, analyse andvisualise the collected data, and further describes technologies for sensor-based measurement of perceptions and emotions while walking. Finally, the paper gives a first glance to the web-based platform, where different data sources are combined and visualised for various user groups and purposes.