Surveying and managing accessibility to public space in great urban areas

الملخص EN

Pedestrian accessibility of urban public space in cities is a branch of the wider discussion about life quality and, more specifically, urban quality.

This paper describes a system to support the management of urban public a space.

A specific field of application is assumed : it concerns the problem of accessibility of the public spaces by “weak” user and in particular by disables persons.

The system is a part of a wider project, promoted by Rome’s public transport board, within the formwork targeted to the enhancement of citizens and tourists mobility.

Aims of the project are : to define a methodology to survey and to analyses the accessibility of pedestrian routs for users with impaired mobility and / or sensory disabilities (user-oriented product) ; to produce an informative system with a geographic component, able to support the modification process (transformation–re-qualification) of the city public space.

Analysis and evaluation of accessibility level of urban public space are based on GIS technology.

In the paper, we firstly outline the assumed management framework ; then a short description of survey methodology is given., including a synthetic specification of the gathered geographical data base ; lastly we discuss methodologies and techniques to measure accessibility and to evaluate usability of public space, developed in GIS environment Project was tested on sidewalks within a distance of 150 meters from tramway in Rome city center.