Extending observations of ambient light level and active travel to explore age and gender differences in reassurance

Abstract

Previous studies have gained data from automated counters to compare the influence of ambient light level on the numbers of people walking and cycling. This paper reports an exploratory study using instead in-person counting, the advantage being that the apparent age and gender of each pedestrian and cyclist can also be recorded. The analysis compares travel counts in case and control periods, with case periods in daylight and darkness, to isolate the effect of change in ambient light level. As expected, the results reveal that there are fewer people walking and cycling after dark. What was unexpected was that for pedestrians, the deterrence of darkness was similar for males and females, which disagrees with previous studies capturing stated preferences suggesting that darkness is a greater deterrent for females than for males.