Assessing the Role of Safety Perception in the Relationship Between Street Environments and Women’s Stay Behavior, Using Multi-Source Big Data

This study establishes an impact pathway hypothesis connecting street environments, safety perception, and women’s stay behaviors based on spatial cognition theory and the lens model theory. It examines the driving factors behind female environmental perception and behavioral patterns in urban streetscapes by integrating street view imagery and facility point data. Random forest models and questionnaire surveys were employed to evaluate the sense of security, and structural equation modeling was used to quantify environmental features, safety perception, and behavioral indicators. The results demonstrate that four street environment dimensions, functionality formats, interface morphology, spatial quality, and street facilities, exert varying degrees of positive or negative influences on women’s safety perception and behaviors. Perceived safety serves as a significant mediator in the environment–behavior pathway, with functionalities, spatial quality, and interface morphology exhibiting sequentially decreasing effect magnitudes in this mediated relationship, while street facilities indirectly affect staying behaviors exclusively through the safety perception mechanism.