Encouraging More Walking: The Effect of Lighting, Greenery, and Other Street Features on Female Pedestrians’ Reassurance at Nigh

Abstract

Women’s movement around their environment can be affected and limited due to fear and safety concerns, and the design of the physical environment is one possible cause of fear. Hence, the aim of this research is to encourage a healthy and sustainable mode of transportation through an investigation of the impact of lighting, greenery, and other street features upon female pedestrians’ feelings of safety. This has been achieved using a mixedmethods approach of qualitative and quantitative experiments. First, the travel count experiment, where the number of pedestrians were observed in eight different locations in Sheffield, UK before and after the daylight-saving clock change, in order to study the effect of lighting on the number of female pedestrians during the day and after dark. Next, the photo elicitation experiment which involved asking male and female participants to share photographs of places they prefer and places they avoid walking in alone after dark, and conducting a follow up interview to evaluate what factors influenced their decisions. The study demonstrates the important role of lighting on the reassurance of female pedestrians at night. Also, this research confirms the positive relationship between greenery, lighting and the feeling of safety among female pedestrians