😊 One of my main PhD papers is out: 'Incorporating diminishing returns to opportunities in access: Development of an open-source walkability index based on multi-activity accessibility'.
https://jtlu.org/index.php/jtlu/article/view/2308
What it's about 🧵
As part of a property price modelling project, I wanted to build an 'open Walkscore' using Pandana, as suggested in their original paper (https://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/conferences/2012/4thITM/Papers-A/0117-000062.pdf).
This led to thinking about:
• what could be in a walkability index, answer: everything - which also means you can use the same design for other modes,
• how to incorporate people's desire to visit multiple places: incorporates infinite destinations, but with diminishing returns to increasing destination numbers, and
2/3
May still publish the hedonic side of it in the future (it became much too big to fit in this paper) but concentrating on writing that up as a chapter to get my thesis out the door right now.
• how to reconcile the catchiness of a '0-100' score while imposing less judgement on what 'full walkability' looks like: complicated, but the diminishing returns thing helps.
Surprising absolutely no one, Australian cities don't perform very well outside of the very centre, apart from good walking access to parks and some amenities like local cafés.