Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Mehdi Moeini ¹
• Bahareh Ebrahimpour ²

¹ Ph.D. Independent Urban Researcher

² Master of Urban Design

Abstract

Following the industrial revolution, the development of urbanization, and the expansion of cities, the oldest form of human movement, i.e. walking, was replaced with the use of automobiles. Therefore, the ease of traverse for pedestrians around cities is less significant now than a century ago. Today, there is a growing interest in enhancement of walking habits in urban areas in order to reduce pollution and other problems associated with motor transportation and to improve public health. Therefore, the issue of walking habits has been included on the agendas of many cities. Highlighting its significance, a large number of studies have been conducted around the world and in Iran over the past few decades to address the issue. The increasing trend in the past decade in the publication of high-quality articles addressing the topic of pedestrians demonstrates its importance and the expert concern for it in the field of urban planning and design. The present article aimed to investigate the issue of pedestrians quantitatively and qualitatively, analyzing and interpreting research published in Iran as high-quality articles and to avoid unnecessary replication in the field. It involved meta-synthesis, using encoding to analyze and interpret previous studies. Thisprovided a valuable opportunity for researchers to access an overview of the existing research activity, which could be very useful and effective in definition of research projects and adoption of new orientations on specific topics. The present paper resulted from an investigation of 80 high-quality articles focused on pedestrians, and sought to draft a vision on pedestrian research by studying the structures and contents of relevant high-quality Persian papers.
The results of the research indicated that the volume of pedestrian research has been growing rapidly in the past two decades, with orientations toward walkability and footpaths. In most articles focused excessively on footpaths, however, promotion of walkability in cities to a basic level with the aim of improving quality and meeting the needs of citizens has been neglected. In fact, pedestrian research should be focused not only on expansion of footpaths but also on flexibility in promotion of the basic principles of walkability and, consequently, the desire to walk around cities, of which footpaths are only a part.
The most important issues found through a review of the existing pedestrian studies include the unnecessary replication of the contents of pedestrian research, repetitive selection of case studies, application of inconsistent terminology, and lack of concern for particular target groups including children, women, and the disabled. The review also indicated that the majority of the studies had been conducted only at the micro-scale (sidewalk-street), and no mention was found of other types of space used for pedestrians, such as neighborhoods. Many articles have dealt with the issue of pedestrians in isolation, while pedestrian studies are part of the research on transportation systems, and need to be linked to investigations of other modes of transportation. Finally, the most common topics associated with the issue of pedestrians were extracted, including activity-behavior, vision and perspective, social issues, environmental qualities, safety and security, health, and tourism. Thus, future research will need to disregard repetitive topics and focus instead on other relevant, influential issues in the area.

Keywords

• Pedestrian
• Footpath
• Walkability
• Meta-synthesis
• Persian articles

Main Subjects

• Urban Planning