title: How walkable is the city? Application of the Walking Suitability Index of the Territory (T-WSI) to the city of Rieti (Lazio Region, Central Italy).
abstract: A method to evaluate the walkability of an urban neighbourhood based on direct observation has been applied. This tool, called the Walking Suitability Index of the Territory (T-WSI), measures the walkability of every street of an environmental area. It includes 12 weighted indicators, each divided into 4 categories: practicability, safety, urbanity, and pleasantness. Each indicator can obtain one of the following values: excellent (100), good (75), poor (35), bad (0). T-WSI is applied to 12/15 urban neighbourhoods of Rieti, a small city (47,912 inhabitants) located in Lazio Region (Central Italy). The average of T-WSI scores range from 24.2 to 61.2 among urban neighbourhoods. On average, safety and urbanity are the categories which reach very low scores. The T-WSI allows to underline several street criticalities that could hinder walkability and could be a good basis to support public decision-makers about health policy and local development aimed at encouraging physical activity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Building and Environmental Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome. daniela.dalessandro@uniroma1.it.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: D'Alessandro
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Building and Environmental Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome.
authors.forename: Letizia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Appolloni
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, University of Pavia.
authors.forename: Lorenzo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Capasso
mesh_terms: D002947:Cities; D004779:Environment Design / Q000592:standards; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012449:Safety / Q000592:standards; D014504:Urban Health / Q000592:standards; D014505:Urban Population; D016138:Walking