Applicability of virtual Systematic Social Observation using Google Street View in an urban walkability assessment

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the applicability of virtual systematic social observation (SSO) using Google Street View (GSV) in a walkability assessment. Recently, the importance of measuring not only the diversity and accessibility of destinations, but also landscapes and human-scale indicators perceived by pedestrians in terms of walkability, have been recognized. Therefore, in order to utilize virtual SSO using GSV as a method for evaluating the perceived built environment, we examined the relationship between the built environment measured with this method and walking data from a person trip survey. The survey was conducted via a crowdsourced web-based questionnaire on 10,217 streets in 196 districts that were randomly selected from the small zones in Tokyo’s metropolitan area. As a result, three characteristics of the walking environment were identified: “maintained environment” (e.g., sidewalk, street bench), “natural environment,” and “commercial environment.” These characteristics were extracted via a principal component analysis, and the scores were related to the incidence rate of walking (percentage of trips taken by walking). The results indicate the usefulness of this method in assessing the human-scale walking environment. Therefore, properly measuring and improving the walking environment is recommended in the effort to support the formation of cities that promote walking.