Study of built environment impact on walking attitude of people to go to working place using agent- based modeling approach

Articles in Press

Document Type : Scientific-Research

Authors

Masoud Zamanipoor ¹

Mohammad Rahim Rahnama ²

Mohammad Ajza shokouhi ²

¹ PhD Student

² Ferdowsi university of Mashhad

https://doi.org/10.22067/jgusd.2022.78362.1243

Abstract

With the increase of awareness about the environmental and health costs caused by unbridled and car-oriented urbanization in the last two decades, urban planners have been prompted to search for human-centered strategies as an alternative strategy for urban development. One of the alternative strategies is walkable neighborhoods that were appeared by new theoretical approaches of development such as smart growth, compact cities and etc. Present research studied the role of the built environment on the attitude to walk people who go to their working place using agent-based modeling. One of the centric neighborhoods in Amol was selected as a case study. Safety, aesthetic and job density are made as built environment variables. The required data was achieved through documentary information, self-report and focus groups. Also, the model was made using the Anylogic software. Data was entered in the software in the form of agent behavioral state-chart, parameters, variables, codes and some equations. The result indicated that the interaction between human and human was not influential on the attitude to walk, and the interaction between human and environment was the most influential on it and on the scale of walking travel. Some of the results elicited that increase of job density in centric neighborhoods was not influential on walking behavior, but decrease of job density was directly able to relate to the attitude of people walking to go to their work. This research showed that modifying the aesthetic and safety level of the neighborhood streets was extremely more influential than modifying the job density of the neighborhood on the attitude to walk.

Keywords

Walkable city

Agent-based modeling

Anylogic

Built environment

Amol

Subjects

• urban planinnin

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