Citation

Zhao J, Su W, Luo J, Zuo J. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022; 19(1): e71.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph19010071

PMID

35010339

Abstract

(1) Background: In the context of a children friendly city, accessibility and safety are the basic needs of children's pedestrian school travel. This study proposes a comprehensive evaluation method of pedestrian accessibility and safety for children's school travel. (2) Methods: Firstly, the school travel network was constructed by simulating the path of children walking to school. Secondly, from the meso and micro dimensions, the impact factors of pedestrian accessibility and safety were combed out, and an evaluation index system was constructed. Finally, pedestrian accessibility and safety were evaluated based on the Space Syntax analysis and ArcGIS spatial analysis, and the results were superimposed and spatially differentiated. The new evaluation method was tested in the Jintang Road area in Hedong District, Tianjin, China. (3) Results: The pedestrian accessibility and safety of children's school travel road in the study area needed to be improved. It was found that the main impact factors were the effective walking width, the spatial connectivity, the visual integration, the obstruction of pedestrian safety, the completeness of crossing facilities and the influence of traffic flow and put forward optimization strategies. After optimized simulation verification, the overall improvement was achieved. (4) Conclusion: The evaluation method is helpful to calculate the pedestrian accessibility and safety of children's school travel, and help decision makers determine the design and management strategies of child-friendly streets.

Language: en

Keywords

children; safety; accessibility; optimization verification; pedestrian school travel road