Research Projects within the Walking as a Mode of Transport program (Walking)

Since its inception in 2022, the Walking program has initiated 26 exploratory research projects involving +100 researchers and numerous Ph.D. candidates at multiple universities across the globe. Below you find the projects listed and you can click to see their abstracts.

Ongoing Exploratory projects, implemented 2024-25:

Mainstreaming walking as a mode of transport in urban decision-making from an intersectional gender perspective: a cross-regional case study of Brazil and Mozambique

  • Main Applicant: Maria José Nieto
  • Affiliation: The Bartlett Development Planning Unit , University College London, UK

Towards Walkability Transitions in Latin America: disentangling policy rationalities, institutional path dependencies and technical solutionist projects

  • Main Applicant: Manuel Dammert Guardia
  • Affiliation: Dept of Social Sciences, CISEPA, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru PUCP. (Lima, Peru).

Becoming a citizen: understanding adolescents’ walking practices for better public policies

  • Main Applicant: Cristhian Figueroa M
  • Affiliation: Dept de Planificación y Ordenamiento Territorial, Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana (UTEM) & Centro de Desarrollo Urbano Sustentable (CEDEUS), Chile

Pedestrian Expertise in Historical Perspective: The Science-Policy Nexus around Walking in Sweden and the UK

  • Main Applicant: Prof. Martin Emanuel
  • Affiliation: Division of Urban and Regional Studies, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

Exploring the Experiences and Urban Policy Initiatives for Low-Income Women Walking to Work in Abuja and Dodoma

  • Main Applicant: Daniel Adamu
  • Affiliation: Dept of Urban and Regional Planning, Nasarawa State University Keffi-Nigeria, Nigeria

Entangled Pathways: Policy Lessons from Street Vending, Walking and Footpaths in Kolkata and Bangkok

  • Main Applicant: Premjeet Das Gupta
  • Affiliation: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India

Ongoing Exploratory projects, implemented 2023-24:

Measuring Walkability: A Comprehensive Index for Enhancing Pedestrian-Friendly Environments in Latin American Cities

  • Project Leader: Ana Margarita Larranaga
  • Affiliation: Uriarte Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, School of Engineering, Laboratory of Transport Systems, (LASTRAN), Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Crime, perceived insecurity and the walking behaviours of older people: a comparative study in Chile and Mexico

  • Project Leader: Giovanni Vecchio
  • Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile.

Walking to School in Latin America

  • Project leader:Alexandra Krstikj
  • School of Architecture, Art and Design, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey State of Mexico, Mexico.

Exploring the Personal Burden and Value of Pedestrian Experiences of Women from Low Income Backgrounds in Nairobi and Dar–Salaam

  • Project leader: Violet Wavire
  • Kenyatta University, School of Education, Nairobi, Kenya.

From accessibility measures to the understanding of walkability

  • Project Leader: Juan Pablo Ospina Zapata
  • School of Applied Sciences and Engineering, Universidad EAFIT, Colombia.

Walking across borders: exploring challenges to walkability in the Global South

  • Project Leader: Joseph Ferreira
  • Dept of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA.

Inequality in Walking the 24 hour city: temporality, intersectionality and the embodied experience in Dar es Salaam, Tshwane and Cardiff

  • Project Leader: Margot Rubins
  • Spatial Planning, School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, UK

Work-walks and walkscapes: Women domestic workers’ lived experiences and contexts of mobility in Lima and Mumbai

  • Project Leader: Burte Himanshu
  • Centre for Urban Science and Engineering (CUSE), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-B) Powai, Mumbai, India.

Long-distance walking: a wildcard of mobility futures?

  • Project leader: Farzaneh Bahrami
  • Urban Design and Mobility, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, Netherlands.

Walking and Freight Delivery Operations. Contrasting Space-Sharing Conflicts in Two Cities Within the Global South and North

  • Project Leader: Catherine Waithera Gateri
  • Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya.

Using a Peer Research Methodology to Investigate Children’s Mobility Challenges in Secondary Cities in Ghana and Liberia: A Comparative Study of Cape Coast and Ganta

  • Project Leader: Jack Jenkins
  • Dept of Anthropology, Durham University, South Road, Durham, UK.

Investigating young men’s experiences of walking in secondary cities: A comparative study of walking in South Africa and the United Kingdom

  • Project Leader: Gina Porter
  • Dept of Anthropology, Durham University, South Road, Durham, UK.

Ongoing Exploratory projects, implemented 2022:

Investigating young men’s experiences of walking to the ‘bus’ in low income neighbourhoods of Cape Town and London: a comparative study built round a community peer research methodology 

  • Project leader: Gina Porter
  • Dept of Anthropology, Durham University, Durham, UK

Biosocial Walking: Investigating the emotions of urban walking for migrants from the global south

  • Project leader: Tess Osborne
  • Human Geography, Dept of Geography, Geology and the Environment, U. of Leicester, Leicester, UK

Developing An Intersectional Equity Framework to Support Walkability Transitions

  • Project leader: Iderlina Mateo-Babiano
  • The University of Melbourne, Urban Planning, Diversity and Inclusion, Melbourne School of Design, Australia

Urban roads: enablers or barriers to walking?

  • Project leader: Karel Martens
  • Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

Mobile digital technology as a tool to study walkability to advance theory, policy, and practice of walking for transport

  • Project leader: Tamara Bozovic
  • Centre for Transport & Society, University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, UK

Children and Adolescents’ Everyday Walking: Experiences and Practices from an Intersectional Perspective

  • Project leader: Karen S. Cuevas
  • NGO La Reconquista Peatonal, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile

Transforming the unwalkable city: knowledge, practices, and interventions for a more inclusive future of walking in Africa

  • Project leader: Daniel Oviedo
  • Development Planning Unit (DPU), University College London (UCL), London, UK

Walking as a mode of transport in ‘unwalkable’ contexts: Cross-city experiences from Ghana and Nigeria

  • Project Leader: Enoch F. Sam
  • Dept of Geography Education, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.