Paper Title
Evaluating Citizens Attitudes and The Potential for A Smart Pedestrian Network Application: A Market Research Study
Abstract
Today, people drive more and walk less. The use of vehicles has become the main way of travelling, even for short distances. This has a negative impact on many socioeconomic areas, some of which are the health of people, the planning of cities, the natural environment and generally the quality of life. This paper presents a market research study to explore citizens attitudes on the pedestrian network conditions as well as the potential for a smart phone application that provides users relevant information for effective route selection and connectivity in order to enhance and improve the walking experience. For this purpose, an onsite survey was carried out in two selected areas, one with adverse pedestrian network conditions and the other with high quality pedestrian network conditions. Based on the analysis of the collected data, we see that citizens are aware that walking is good for their health, and are willing to walk in both regions. However, it seems the adverse walking conditions negatively influences the decision to walk. Further, there seems to be a demand for a smartphone pedestrian network application, but this is dependent on specific business models. This paper contributes to sustainable development and the idea of a smart city. The findings support further research to be carried out in order to develop and market such a system, which would be useful both for citizens and local governments for improving urban spaces and the quality of life.
Index Terms - Market Research, Pedestrian Environment, Quality of Service, Smart Cities, Sustainable Development