Exploring walking from the perspective of theory of planned behavior

Theory of planned behavior (TPB) is a social cognition model that proposes that a persons’ surroundings influences their behavior. Pedestrian studies based on TPB are few, and often, not only measure walking subjectively, but also have very generic measures of TPB constructs that do not account for built environment. Urban planners have, on the other hand, emphasized for decades the importance of built environment on walking and use of public spaces. This paper aims to develop a detailed understanding of the factors that affect an individual’s walking that would assist planners in developing strategies to increase the modal share of walking. Thus, unlike most studies, it measures attitude towards and perceived control over the behavior (i.e., walking) and the built environment, in addition to measuring walking objectively (at both individual and trip levels). Data was collected in the autumn of 2019 in Umeå, Sweden, using a smartphone app in the form of GPS-based travel data (i.e., distance, time, location, activity) and survey questions (i.e., demographics and psychological constructs of TPB). The results reinforced previous findings that attitude and perceived control correlate to walking and identified the key variables under each behavioral construct. The purpose, the reasons people like to walk and their attitude towards the built environment showed significant correlation to individuals’ walking behavior. Perceived control over the behavior and built environment, was also found to have a significant correlation to walking. Thus, this paper makes important methodological contribution towards using TPB to analyze walking.