A stated preference approach for measuring walking accessibility

Modeling route choices of pedestrians is complex, as they attend to the details of the walking environment, including attributes of the walking facilities, perceptions about safety, weather conditions, etc. To this end, we propose a utility-based choice model that jointly considers physical network attributes and pedestrian preferences. We conduct a D-efficient stated-preference experiment to obtain pedestrians’ behavioral responses to ten street-level walking facility attributes. Based on the multinomial logit model and the panel mixed model, we estimate the cost coefficient for each facility attribute, which is then incorporated to develop the utility-based walking accessibility measure. For illustration purposes, we apply this measure to analyze the walking accessibility for the district of Kwun Tong in Hong Kong and appraise the expected benefits of two infrastructure improvement schemes that are under construction. Such appraisals with the proposed utility-based walking accessibility measure are important for policy-making and prioritizing improvement schemes with objective measures.