The use of mobile phone technology in the collection of user perceptions of walkability along pedestrian routes from public transport in Cape Town and New Delhi

• Main Author: Wasswa, Banele
• Other Authors: Zuidgeest, Mark
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Cape Town 2016
• Subjects: Civil Engineering; Transport Studies
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21184

Background: Cities in developing countries are upgrading their public transport at unprecedented rates in efforts to create transportation systems that are more sustainable and equitable. South Africa and India are seeing massive investments in features that are improving operational characteristics of public transport systems. However, more effort will need to be expended in improving public transport access/egress conditions, in order to ensure that public transport is a competitive alternative to door to door motorised transport trips. Particular attention will need to be paid to non-motorised transport, as it is the most common means of access/egress for people in the Global South, despite conditions for pedestrians being uncomfortable and a threat to their safety and security. Traditional methods of evaluating the accessibility of public transport stations have been found to be overly mechanistic. Through improved operationalisation of built environment factors and crowd sourcing user perceptions, a better understanding of how supportive the built environment is for walking can be achieved. Study details: This study presents the following: 1. The development and testing of an Android mobile phone application, along with its associated online dashboard. The mobile phone application allows for the collection of data on the pedestrian experience and is a shift away from the mechanistic approach to understanding pedestrian challenges. Using the application, users rate their walking environment along dimensions of safety, security, infrastructure and comfort, while geo-tagging walking routes. The dashboard is used to store and visualise the users' perception data and multimedia captured using the mobile phones. 2. A proposed spatial analysis method, using Spatial Clustering Algorithms for analysing data captured using the mobile phone application. As crowd sourced datasets are very large, filtering approaches may not be capable of distinguishing between outliers and clusters of high/low ratings. Thus, more robust analysis methods are required in order to extract meaningful insights. 3. The piloting of the application and proposed spatial analysis method in Cape Town and New Delhi. Results of pilot studies: Six public transport locations across Cape Town and New Delhi were chosen for the pilot studies. Survey facilitators, with the application preloaded on mobile phones, intercepted public transport users travelling along their egress trips. Respondents were asked to make use of the application to report on their perception of the walking environment as they were escorted to their destination.