Correlating objective (road inventory) and subjective (user-perception) features in walkability and bikeability assessment

Limited data hinder the promotion and advancement of active transportation (walking and bicycling) in developing countries. It is then important to utilize the available information on the road environment to assess walkability and bikeability. The study aims to correlate the objective factors (sidewalk and bicycle lane inventory data) to the subjective factors (user-perception of pedestrians and bicycle lane users) that could assess a road network's walkability and bikeability. Both objective and subjective factors were subdivided into three main components: convenience, safety, and comfortability, for walkability and bikeability indices. The internal consistency was determined in the questionnaire scores’ evaluation. Then, principal component analysis (PCA) was proposed to group indices into summarized factors. The PCA revealed that questions on intersections did not affect the perception of pedestrians on the road's walkability. A case study of a city in Metro Manila showed that there was a strong positive correlation between the scores in all components of the objective and subjective factors, which the correlation coefficient being greater than 0.83 in all the components. This meant that the user-perception are reflective and indicative of the state of the objective characteristics of the sidewalks and bicycle lanes, which meant that the questionnaire could be used for other urban roads as well. Moreover, the changes in the objective features such as widening sidewalk width or bicycle lane could predict a change in the users’ perception of walkability and bikeability. The results suggest that the perceived walkability and bikeability scores of urban roads are a determining factor in diagnosing and evaluating countermeasures to improve the objective features of sidewalks and bicycle paths.