Barrier Effect in a Medium-Sized Brazilian City: An Exploratory Analysis Using Decision Trees and Random Forests

Mylena Cristine Rodrigues de Jesus and Antônio Nélson Rodrigues da Silva
Additional contact information
Mylena Cristine Rodrigues de Jesus: Department of Transportation Engineering, São Carlos School of Engineering of the University of Sao Paulo, São Carlos 13566-590, Brazil
Antônio Nélson Rodrigues da Silva: Department of Transportation Engineering, São Carlos School of Engineering of the University of Sao Paulo, São Carlos 13566-590, Brazil

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 10, 1-18

Abstract: This study aims to examine if an urban road with intense motorized traffic in a medium-sized Brazilian city constitutes a barrier for walking trips. A questionnaire was conducted with 103 individuals in an area up to 800 m from the road selected for the study to obtain information about personal characteristics (age, income, etc.), social interactions in the neighborhood, and travel and mobility characteristics. We used the dataset to explore the potential of Decision Tree and Random Forest classification models to predict the users’ perception of the barrier effect, which was characterized by the dependent variables speed and volume (of motorized traffic). For 36.9% and 47.6% of respondents, traffic speed and traffic volume, respectively, represent a barrier to walking. The results also show that the following variables considerably affect the perception of the barrier effect of the respondents: distance from their residence to the studied road, time living at the address and in the study area, social connections in the neighborhood, and the street reported as the busiest one in the neighborhood. Identifying the variables with the largest influence on the perception of the barrier effect may be very useful for planning and policy initiatives.

Keywords: barrier effect; community severance; non-motorized transport; pedestrians; active modes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/10/6309/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/10/6309/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:10:p:6309-:d:821162

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().