Piloting the Kids in the City study

The Kids in the City study is one of the projects involving children, independent mobility and the environment. For this study we are recruiting 120 8-11 year olds from neighbourhoods with diverse built environment characteristics. For example, some neighbourhoods are more walkable than others, whereas some have better access to different destinations.

We plan to measure where children go and how physically active they are by getting them to wear GPS units and accelerometers for seven days. Main data collection is this year, but at the end of last year we did a small pilot study to test the methodology, and I'm very glad we did!

Because our data collection strategy changed between the proposal and the project there were lots of issues that we hadn't considered (e.g. recharging 25 plus GPS units + running a couple of laptops off one powerpoint might not be a great idea). Anyway, the pilot was very useful and now I have some pilot data to try and make sense of.

Can Virtual Streetscape Audits Reliably Replace Physical Streetscape Audits?

Here we examined the use of google streetview to conduct virtual streetscape audits. We found that in general it provided a cheaper and reliable alternative to conducting the audits in person.

Can Virtual Streetscape Audits Reliably Replace Physical Streetscape Audits?

Measuring Neighbourhood Walkability in NZ Cities

The Measuring Neighbourhood Walkability in NZ Cities report is available for download from SHORE or Knowledge Auckland.

The report describes three measures of transport-related urban form that are being

developed using GIS and applied in New Zealand cities. The three measures are

• Walkability Index (combining street connectivity, dwelling density, land-use

mix, and retail floor area ratio)

• Neighbourhood Destinations Accessibility Index (NDAI)

• Land Use and Public Transport Accessibility Index (LUPTAI)