July 7, 2021
UW researchers offer a roadmap for more robust modeling of pedestrian mobility
Researchers from the University of Washington Allen School’s Taskar Center for Accessible Technology have developed a framework for modeling how pedestrians with varying needs and preferences navigate the urban environment. This framework holds the potential to improve pedestrian experiences, redress mobility concerns and expand the accessibility of urban landscapes.
The team created a personalized pedestrian network analysis (PPNA), which offers a roadmap for city-scale mobility that captures diverse pedestrian experiences. The PPNA also opens up new opportunities for collaboration at the intersection of mobility, demographics and socioeconomic status; this allows researchers, city planners, transit agencies and other key stakeholders to think about environments and infrastructure in tandem.
The Taskar Center’s OpenSidewalks project, which focuses on understanding and improving the pedestrian experience through better data collection, has informed this work. The OpenSidewalks project is one of the five projects to be featured in the 2021 Social Entrepreneurship Fellows Program, supported by the Population Health Initiative in partnership with the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship, CoMotion and the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance.