Activity Patterns in Public Space: Differences based on Gender, Age and Group

Name, title and affiliation
Stefan van der Spek (s.c.vanderspek@tudelft.nl)
Architect MSc PhD
Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Short biography
Stefan van der Spek did his Master in Architecture at TU Delft. His final project ‘Amstel Intermodal Centre’ (1997) resulted in a PhD study within the TRAIL ‘Seamless Multimodal Mobility’ program, titled: ‘Intermodal Transfer Points’. The thesis ‘Connectors – the Way beyond Transferring’ was published in 2003. Main issue was the design of walkable transport hubs.

After finishing his PhD he became Assistant Professor for the Chair of Urban Design. Today, he is lecturer in the MSc and BSc and researcher in the field of Urban Design, especially Pedestrian Oriented Design. His research focuses on Activity Patterns in Public Space. He participated in European Union funded projects ‘Spatial Metro’ and ‘Connected Cities’. In January 2007 he and a colleague organised an international expert meeting called ‘Urbanism on Track’. In 2008 he was editor of the books ‘Street-Level Desires: Pedestrian Mobility and the regeneration of the European city centre’ (2008, Urbanism/Booksurge) and ‘Urbanism on Track – Application of Tracking Technologies in Urbanism’ (2008, IOS Press).

Abstract
The enhancement of GPS technology enables the use of GPS devices not only as navigation and orientation tools, but also as instruments used to capture travelled routes: as sensors measuring movement on city or regional scale. TU Delft collected data on pedestrian movement in three European cities: Norwich, Rouen and Koblenz; in another experiment 15 families were tracked in Almere for one week.

Using a questionnaire the trajectories can be grouped and aggregated on specific trip or personal related information. Hence, insight in specific users and use is possible. This paper will focus on new available patterns based on time weighted point density drawings for gender, age and group type.

The presentation will include a comparison between the three cities and an analysis of the patterns within each city.

Keywords: GPS; Tracking; People; Behavior; Mapping; Movement.