Built environment attributes and their influence on walkability

Abstract

Walking is a sustainable mode of transport and a healthy way of doing physical activity. Walkability is a concept that has gained enormous popularity in recent years due to its potential to promote more sustainable urban environments and healthy lifestyles. This paper provides a literature review to analyze the influence of built environment attributes on walkability. The Scopus and Web of Science databases were chosen to survey the peer-reviewed documents published up to June 2020. A total of 132 documents were selected by the search. The review of these 132 documents showed that various built environment attributes were differently analyzed and assessed. More specifically, the search identified 32 built environment attributes that were assessed by using 63 measures. Intersection density, residential density and land use mix were the most used attributes for assessing walkability, namely by using objective methods, such as ratios and spatial score tools. In turn, attributes related to streetscape design and security were much less adopted in walkability assessments. This paper provides additional insights into how built environment attributes influence walkability and identifies gaps and issues that should be analyzed in-depth in the future. The review could be helpful for researchers and urban planners in developing walkability studies and in defining policies to improve walkability.

Keywords:

• Active modes
• built environment attributes
• pedestrians
• sustainable mobility
• walkability
• walking

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the JPI Urban Europe, FCT—PT (ENSUF/0004/2016), MIUR-I, FFG—A and RPF—CY.