Investigation of Weather Impacts on Pedestrian Volumes

Abstract

This study investigates the impacts of temporal and weather characteristics on pedestrian volumes in a hot climate condition. A major neighborhood located in an urban area in Doha, Qatar was chosen as a case study site. The pedestrian volume data was gathered for three seasons, two days in each season, and three time periods for each day using observations from video recordings for the entire neighborhood. Overall, low pedestrian activity was noticed for all seasons. Pedestrians walked more during the weekday in the winter season, and during the weekend in the summer and spring seasons. Generally, the pedestrian volume was higher during the evening time. The results of a multiple linear regression analysis showed that the pedestrian volume had a log-linear relationship with the weather characteristics. The temperature was the only significant parameters affecting the pedestrian volume. This research is one of the first to study the effect of weather conditions on the pedestrian volumes in a hot weather climate environment.