The Effect of Outdoor Thermal Conditions on Daily and Seasonally Pedestrian Behavior in Various Streets of Mediterranean City

In recent years, the concept of urban ‘walkability’ has become common in multiple fields connected to urban geography, urban planning, and has both social and environmental benefits. In the last decade urban climatology research has paid more attention to the effect of urban outdoor thermal conditions on walkability. Walkability can be defined as the extent to which the built environment enables, supports and encourages walking, by providing pedestrians on the move friendly and safety environment, visual interest in street network’ and thermal comfort 

This study examined the relations between outdoor thermal conditions and walkability in the Mediterranean City of Tel Aviv, aiming to: (1) assess the relationship between urban morphology at street level on the objective and subjective thermal comfort of pedestrians on the move, (2) quantify the influence of land use and centrality of streets on pedestrians' thermal perception, and (3) evaluate the seasonal and hourly effect of thermal comfort on pedestrian volume.

Field campaigns were conducted in summer and winter, in six different types of streets including micro-climatic measurements, pedestrian observation and counting, and a bio-meteorology questionnaire survey.

The results showed that the effect of thermal comfort is more pronounced in summer than winter thus during summer less pedestrian volume was observed during the hottest hours of the day. The pedestrian volume in winter is much higher than in summer. In commercial streets, the relation between thermal perception and pedestrian volume is weak, compared to noncommercial streets. During the summer the pedestrian volume in boulevards and shaded streets is higher compared to exposed streets.

The findings indicate that thermal conditions affect pedestrian volume, but this is dependent upon the street network structure and type of land use.