Ricerc@Sapienza

A strategy that prioritizes health and well-being in cities, based on physical activity, understood above all as a lifestyle that is generally active and practicable every day, is a practice that is accessible to all, able to counteract the sedentary lifestyle and reduce the impact of chronic diseases.

Introduction - Scientific evidence stresses that more walkable neighborhoods are linked to increased physical activity. Walking Suitability Index of the territory (T-WSI) is an easy method, already validated, to evaluate the walkability on the basis of direct observation. Aim of the study is to compare the walkability indices obtained in three urban neighborhoods of the city of Rome in 2009 and 2019, to evaluate whether the urban redevelopment interventions, performed in the decade, do really promote walkability.

As walking for physical activity is associated with significant health benefits, several studies empirically support the role of walkable environments in inducing or hindering of walking. Researchers proposed different methods to measure the level of walkability. Google Street View (GSV) is an instrument able to assess physical features of city streets and environments as well as Site visit and local resident’s perception.

Self-reported and objectively-determined neighborhood built characteristics are associated with walking. This study investigated whether associations between the neighborhood built environment features and neighborhood walkability Index varied by sociodemographic and health-related characteristics. A random sample number of 385 adults (male=162, female=222) completed postal questionnaire capturing neighborhood walkability, socio-demographic characteristics, walking attitudes, and health-related characteristics (BMI).

The Walking Suitability Index of the Territory–T-WSI is an innovative methodology to assess walkability. Unlike other methods and tools in this field designed to evaluate walkability on given origin-destination paths, T-WSI is conceived for area-wide assessments, typically at the neighborhood level. This can be achieved by visual surveys to collect data, which are easy to perform at street level, their further process via an algorithm, and their aggregation to assess the walking performance levels of the test area.

The salutogenicity of urban environments is significantly affected by their ergonomics, i.e., by the quality of the interactions between citizens and the elements of the built environment. Measuring and modelling urban ergonomics is thus a key issue to provide urban policy makers with planning solutions to increase the well-being, usability and safety of the urban environment. However, this is a difficult task due to the complexity of the interrelations between the urban environment and human activities.

Irregularity of maintenance operations to restore evenness conditions after damages from shocks, weather phenomena or due to the installation of equipment, and substandard execution of the sidewalks are all factors contributing to walking unsuitability, thus to poor comfort and safety levels for pedestrians. All of the above can be solved by appropriate maintenance management programs and the choice of the adequate type as well as the timeliness of maintenance works can optimize the quality of maintenance interventions.

Walking and transit are the backbone of sustainable mobility. Bus stops not only represent the connection between the two, but are also central in dictating the attractiveness of the latter. Accessibility of bus stops becomes, then, pivotal in increasing both attractiveness and sustainability of public transport. The paper describes a multi-step methodology to evaluate bus stops’ accessibility starting from a cluster of seven indicators describing objective and subjective features influencing passengers’ choice toward a given bus stop.