Transit users’ preferences for street infrastructure during daytime and night-time walking

• Street attributes show context-specific patterns in day and night route choice. • Daytime choices are associated with accessibility and comfort features. • Nighttime choices are associated with safety and security cues. • Preference heterogeneity appears across gender, age, and primary mode. • Findings support pedestrian-oriented design around transit stations. Understanding how street infrastructure influences route choices during access and egress walking trips is essential to promoting pedestrian-oriented environments around urban rail transit (URT) stations and extending their catchment areas. This study employed a visual route-choice experiment with 651 transit users in Guiyang, China, using a mixed logit model (MXL) incorporating interactions between individual characteristics and route attributes to evaluate preferences for street infrastructure during daytime and night-time walking. Results indicate that pedestrians favor routes to metro stations with narrower driveways, wider pavements, and tree- or hedge-lined walkways in the daytime. Adequate lighting and improved natural and mechanical surveillance effectively mitigate night-time security concerns. Preference heterogeneity was further observed across gender, age, and primary travel mode. The visualized experiment provides empirical evidence for designing pedestrian-friendly streets that enhance walking comfort and safety, thereby supporting sustainable transit use.