Which Types of People Choose A Walkable Lifestyle?
There’s been plenty of research
into how walkable streets and neighbourhoods get more people walking.
However what we’re less sure about is: Who are the people that choose to
walk more?
In an attempt to answer this question, Transport for London have released new research
with some interesting findings. By combining a large travel survey
with Londoners demographic data, the study attempted to identify which
types of people walk more as part of their everyday lifestyle.
Women walk more
They
found that, on average, women make more journey stages on foot than
men (females walked 4.1 journey stages while males only walked 3.8).
However one consolation for any overly-competitive male is that the
study also found that women walk a shorter distance per stage than men.
It
seems that men walk even less once they are in a relationship and have
children, while for women it’s the exact opposite, they walk more once
they have children. Perhaps this is partly explained by the fact
that, on average, women are still more likely than men to stay-at-home
to look after children, including journeys like walking to school.
Younger
people (aged 20 – 44) walk more stages per day than older people, with
young women (aged 20 – 44) walking the most. This rings true with recent reports
that have found that Generation Y (born between 1979 and 2000) are
looking to live in walkable urban locations and are embracing the
walkable lifestyle.
Is being single good for you?
The
study also found that single adults walked more than people in a
relationship (regardless of whether they had children or not). So we
can now add ‘getting more exercise’ to the list of benefits of being
single!
Urban
location was also found to be key, with ‘Central’ Londoners walking
more than ‘Inner’ Londoners and a lot more than those in the ‘Outer’
suburbs. As the built environment becomes more dense, public transport
more frequent and driving is more hassle, it seems that people walk
more.
Unsurprisingly
car ownership reduces walking (people without a car made 4.5 journey
stages on foot, while those with 2 or more cars only walked 3.2 journey
stages). In contrast to this, is the fact that the richer people are,
the more likely they are to walk, despite having the option of
driving. The research team put this down to ‘narrower travel horizons
amongst those on lower incomes’.
Marketing walking
But
why are Transport for London so interested in peoples walking
behaviours? It seems that one reason is to better target marketing in
order to get people to change their behaviour and walk more. The study
even utilises similar approaches that big business use for customer
marketing, creating target groups for future behaviour change
programmes. This approach found that demographic groups with names like
‘Active Urbanites’ and ‘Cosmopolitan Lives’ (32% of Londons
population) were walking more than the average Londoner. It seems that
factors such as your stage in life (young and single) and lifestyle
(living in a very urban area) influence how much you walk.
But
peoples attitudes to walking also seem to change as they progress
through life, with people classed as ‘Active Urbanites’ and
‘Cosmopolitan Lives’ much more likely to make positive statements about
walking such as:
“Walking is a method of transport that I would want to be seen using.”
While people with families and on lower incomes were more likely to agree with negative opinions on walking, including:
“Walking is only for people who can’t afford other ways of getting there.”
This
highlights an opportunity for Transport for London to try to change
attitudes and behaviours in these groups. It would also be interesting
to see how this geo-demographic data compares to the walkability of
local streets using a dataset such as the Walkonomics London map.
While
this study has drilled down a bit deeper into the factors behind
walking behaviour, the real test will be to see how governments in
London and other big cities use this information to get more people
walking.