At my faculty we are going to start the project on spatial development of the areas surrounding urban hotels. The analysis need to be spatially limited. Thus, we would like to limit the area of the research into the radius of "close walking distance" from the hotel. Hence, we need the definition of "close walking distance". I appreciate your ideas of requested definition or suggestions of papers presenting or discussing this definition. Thank you in advance.
Interesting question. Not sure yet (I'll see what I can find) - but do you expect close walking distance to vary by purpose and pedestrian type (e.g. handicapped)?
I had used a third of a mile as reasonable walking distance when it comes to the analysis of proximity to bus routes in a study:
Technical Report Geospatial Analysis of Environmental and Risk Index Equity i...
This translates to about 0.5 km or about 7 minutes of walking at normal pace.
It very much depends on the climate zone too. In very cold or very hot climates, for instance, walking a couple of minutes in extreme conditions can be difficult to tolerate.
Also, have a look at this q&a:
https://www.mycarforum.com/topic/2388691-what-is-the-definition-of-within-walking-distance/
Hope it helps.
You May want to explore several buffer sizes - Article Effects of Buffer Size and Shape on Associations between the...
since the appropriate scale may differ for different subgroups e.g. younger vs older, individuals versus families
Thank you all or suggestions and comments. After discussion, we’ve already decided to select 300m buffer (less than 5 min easy walk) for the definition of close walking distance. We agreed with the concept presented in EU handbook entitled “European Common Indicators: Towards a Local Sustainability Profile” and some other papers where the accessibility of green areas in European context is widely discussed. As we don’t have any data on hotel guests, we cannot predefine pedestrian types to be considered as Robert Bartlett suggested. However, the investigation of walking distance definition from the perspective of hotel guest seems to be interesting from the perspective of both academia and hotel industry. What is the perception of close walking distance by people of different age or family status (suggestion of David Berrigan), with different disabilities (if occur), in different spatial (e.g. urban or rural) and temporal contexts, in different climate conditions as Aryan Shahabian suggested? This is a serious question we should address when doing next research project. Thank you for inspirational discussion.
Perhaps this suggestion comes late and is marginally related to your problem. In computational geometry one would like to predict when a new branch (e.g. supermarket, post office, hotel, etc.) can be profitable by estimating the numbers of customers it will attract. Making some simplifying assumptions (which could not be completely satisfied), the model induces a subdivision of the total area under consideration into regions such that the people who live in the same region all go to the same site. This means that the trading area for a given site consists of all those points for which that site is closer than any other site. The model where every point is assigned to the nearest site is called the Voronoi assignment model, and the subdivision induced by this model is called the Voronoi diagram. There are several ways for computing this diagram.
Just an idea, but considering that we humans use the road network to move around in urban environments, measuring "close walking distance" along roads or sidewalks would give you a more appropriate representation of the area that can be realistically reached on foot.
300 meters sounds reasonable to me, I would definitely consider it a short walk even in hot and cold climates.
perhaps this article will help you to decide.
It has been suggested that the services would need to be within a 400 meter radius of residents' homes - approximately 5 minutes walking time
Pikora, T. J., Billie Giles-Corti, and R. Donovan. "How far will people walk to facilities in their local neighbourhoods [?]." AUSTRALIA: WALKING THE 21ST CENTURY, INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, 2001, PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA, VOL 3. 2001.
https://trid.trb.org/view/732837
The concept or the term can be defined the things within walking distance. in Urban transport planning in (TOD concept) we usually plan provide the transit stops after 350-500m, so that to make the attraction, working places, recreational centers and business centers etc more accessible and mobile. the acceptable walking distance should be 400-500m, but the behaviors may change by the individuals such as the age difference, traffic density, number of streets intersection etc.
Persons on this list may be interested in a forthcoming article in my journal, the Moravian Geographical Reports (likely the Winter issue no.4) -- http://www.geonika.cz/mgr.html: "Modelling walking accessibility:
A case study of Ljubljana, Slovenia", by Jernej TIRAN, Mitja LAKNER and Samo DROBNE, which uses a novel distance decay function in this type of analysis.
While conventionally it is taken as 200; 400; 600 or 800m, there is no agreement on the right distance and its perceived impacts on walking level, It is highly dependent on geographical, cultural, built environment and walking infrastructure quality. Some studies can be found in transport litrature discussing optimum walking distance to PT station. some are:
Case Study: Relationship of Walk Access Distance to Transit with Service, Travel, and Personal Characteristics, B. W. Alshalalfah and A. S. Shalaby
The distance-decay function of geographical gravity model: Power law or exponential law? Chaos, Solitons & Fractals
https://doi.org/1۰.1۰16/j.chaos.2۰15.۰5.۰22
Optimal Transit Route Network Design Problem with Variable Transit Demand: Genetic Algorithm Approach. Journal of Transportation Engineering
O’Sullivan, S., Morrall, J. (1996). Walking distance to and from light-rail transit stations.
Tilahun, Nebiyou, and Moyin Li. “Walking Access to Transit Stations.” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2534
Yang, Yong, and Ana V. Diez-Roux. “Walking Distance by Trip Purpose and Population Subgroups.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine
Your radius of 300m fits urban life in general. In Paris, for instance, the distance between metro stations is 500m, so any place is at less than 300m from a station. However, I would consider the final user: around hotels, is he a tourist? Polish, international? The behavioural dimension might call for an adjustment. Best wishes for your research!
Most studies suggest 400 or 500 metres as sufficiently close for the average person. There are very few GPS-verified surveys, and even fewer which break down the purpose of the walking trip. The study by Millward et al. employed a very large data source and employed GPS. For most destinations, the great majority of trips were less than 700m.
Hugh Millward, Jamie Spinney, and Darren Scott, “Active-Transport Walking Behavior: Destinations, Durations, Distances”, Journal of Transport Geography, 28 (2013), 101-110
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