jismart2023024: Investigating the Impact of Commercial Street Environments on Visual Walkability Perceptions by Using Google Street View Panoramas

Abstract

The urban streets walkability can be effectively promoting public health and livable cities construction. The environment of commercial streets play a important role in promoting pedestrian walking and consumption. Based on the growing leisure needs of residents, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to measuring the Visual walkability Perception (VWP) of urban commercial streets and exploring the influence mechanism of the urban commercial street environments on VWP. In this study, the VWP of Fukuoka Tenjin commercial distirct was evaluated based on Google Street View Panorama (GSVP) image data using Semantic Difference (SD) method and Virtual Reality (VR) technology. Meanwhile, the proportion of streetscape elements was extracted from GSVP images by semantic segmentation. Correlation analysis was performed between the assessed values of VWP and streetscape elements. The results show that the tree, plant, grass, and ground in streets have a positive impact on VWP, while building and road have a negative impact. An optimization strategy is proposed to improve the visual walkability quality of commercial streets. It can be applied to the construction and management of walkable commercial street environments.