Developing shopping and dining walking indices using POIs and remote sensing data

Abstract

Walking is one of the most commonly promoted traveling methods and is garnering increasing attention. Many indices/scores have been developed by scholars to measure the walkability in a local community. However, most existing walking indices/scores involve urban planning-oriented, local service-oriented, regional accessibility-oriented, and physical activity-oriented walkability assessments. Since shopping and dining are two major leisure activities in our daily lives, more attention should be given to the shopping or dining-oriented walking environment. Therefore, we developed two additional walking indices that focus on shopping or dining. The point of interest (POI), vegetation coverage, water coverage, distance to bus/subway station, and land surface temperature were employed to construct walking indices based on 50-meter street segments. Then, walking index values were categorized into seven recommendation levels. The field verification illustrates that the proposed walking indices can accurately represent the walking environment for shopping and dining. The results in this study could provide references for citizens seeking to engage in activities of shopping and dining with a good walking environment.