Optimizing Routing and Safety for Pedestrians A tool for Pedestrian Oriented Design

Context Pedestrian movement can be seen as the most important mode of transportation at and around transfer points (of public transport). Most movement is made by this ‘weakest ’ mode: access and egress transportation and interchanging. Walking is a mode of transportation where physical aspects as well as quality of routes count, e.g. distances, barriers, safety and logic. These facts are crucial for the choice of transportation. Nonetheless, not pedestrian movement –patterns and intensities- but mainly the technical aspects and flows of vehicles are being used as the central issue of design for a transfer point and its surroundings. Typically, the design of transfer points ends up in traditional building compositions, neglecting actual pedestrian movement and the potential of its surroundings. Although the traffic aspects can – of course – not be neglected, design research shows that better results can be gained by using the pedestrian as the starting point of design