Towards routine, city-scale accessibility metrics: Graph theoretic interpretations of pedestrian access using personalized pedestrian network analysis

Abstract

A wide range of analytical methods applied to urban systems address the modeling of pedestrian behavior. These include methods for multimodal trip service areas, access to businesses and public services, diverse metrics of "walkability", and the interpretation of location data. Infrastructure performance metrics in particular are an increasingly important means by which to understand and provide services to an urbanizing population. In contrast to traditional one-size-fits all analyses of street networks, as more detailed pedestrian-specific transportation network data becomes available, the opportunity arises to model the pedestrian network in terms of individual experiences. Here, we present a formalized and city-scale framework, personalized pedestrian network analysis (PPNA), for embedding and retrieving pedestrian experiences. PPNA enables evaluation of new, detailed, and open pedestrian transportation network data using a quantitative parameterization of a pedestrian's preferences and requirements, producing one or more weighted network(s) that provide a basis for posing varied urban pedestrian experience research questions, with four approaches provided as examples. We introduce normalized sidewalk reach (NSR), a walkshed-based metric of individual pedestrian access to the sidewalk network, and sidewalk reach quotient (SRQ), an estimate of inequity based on comparing the normalized sidewalk reach values for different pedestrian profiles at the same location. Next, we investigate a higher-order and combinatorial research question that enumerates pedestrian network-based amenity access between pedestrians. Finally, we present city-scale betweenness centrality calculations between unique pedestrian experiences, highlighting disagreement between pedestrians on the "importance" of various pedestrian network corridors. Taken together, this framework and examples represent a significant emerging opportunity to promote the embedding of more explicit and inclusive hypotheses of pedestrian experience into research on urban pedestrian accessibility, multimodal transportation modeling, urban network analysis, and a broader range of research questions.