A GIS-based multi-criteria method to evaluate the level of walkability in the city centre of Guimarães

Abstract

Walking is the greenest, cheapest, and easiest mode of transport and is often the first and last mode of transport used in a trip. Walking is also a form of doing physical activity that helps to prevent various physiological and mental diseases associated with sedentary lifestyles. Due to these benefits, the promotion of more walkable cities has received increasing attention over the last years. The extent to which the built environment is pedestrian-friendly and enables walking is broadly defined as walkability. The research on walkability has resulted in increased precision in measuring the influence of built environment variables on walking, namely due to the availability of spatial data along with the use of GIS tools. Many different methods, variables and measures have been used to describe walkability, which usually rely on a composite measure (index) of various built environment criteria [1]. This presentation summarizes a MSc dissertation on Civil Engineering carried out at the University of Minho [2], which was focus on applying a GIS-based multi-criteria analysis to evaluate the level of walkability in the city centre of Guimarães.