Evaluating Walkable Communities: The Walking Propensity Index in Tokyo

Abstract

There is a growing trend to encourage people to walk to improve their health and stimulate economic activities. This study aimed to identify the characteristics of areas where people actively walk by understanding the factors and individual attributes of people who walk as a representative mode of transportation in the Tokyo metropolitan area. A logistic regression analysis was conducted using the following independent variables: individual attributes, trip attributes, land use, business density, employee density, retail facility type, retail facility diversity, and trip distance. The results showed that areas with more convenience, department, drug, clothing stores contributed to walking as the representative mode of transportation. However, contrary to expectations, we found that the diversity of retail stores had insignificant relationship with promoting walking.