Does Station-Town Space Design Change Pedestrians’ Mobility in Urban Area?

In Japan, a new concept of 'Station and Town Special Design’, an urban development that considers the station and the surrounding town block as a whole and revitalises the vitality of the town as a whole, is attracting attention. We hypothesised that people's movement behaviour in the area would become more active via this Station-Town Space Design project. We analysed the effects using movement direction entropy (MDE), which measures the diversity of people's movement directions. The results showed that MDE increased in the project area. Furthermore, MDE tended to be higher in the surroundings of stations. This suggests that the Station-Town Space Design stimulates people's movement behaviour in the station, station square, and surrounding area. These findings have significant implications for urban planners and developers, as they indicate that MDE can be a useful indicator for measuring the liveliness of a town, and that the Station-Town Space Design design can enhance the vitality of urban areas.