Explorative pedestrian mobility GPS data from a citizen science experiment in a neighbourhood

TL;DR

This study demonstrates how citizen science can effectively collect pedestrian GPS data in a neighborhood, providing insights into micro-mobility and community engagement for urban planning.

Contribution

It introduces a community-based GPS data collection method, sharing raw and processed data, and discusses its application in local urban transformation efforts.

Findings

Collected 3000 GPS recordings from 19 trajectories

Demonstrated community involvement in data collection and placemaking

Provided processed data to facilitate urban analysis

Abstract

Pedestrian GPS data are key to a better understanding of micro-mobility and micro-behaviour within a neighbourhood. These data can bring new insights into walkability and livability in the context of urban sustainability. However, pedestrian open data are scarce and often lack a context for their transformation into actionable knowledge in a neighbourhood. Citizen science and public involvement practices are powerful instruments for obtaining these data and take a community-centred placemaking approach. The study shares some 3000 GPS recordings corresponding to 19 unique trajectories made and recorded by groups of participants from three distinct communities in a relatively small neighbourhood. The groups explored the neighbourhood through a number of tasks and chose different places to stop and perform various social and festive activities. The study shares not only raw data but also processed records with specific filtering and processing to facilitate and accelerate data usage. Citizen science practices and the data-collection protocols involved are reported in order to offer a complete perspective of the research undertaken jointly with an assessment of how community-centred placemaking and operative mapping are incorporated into local urban transformation actions.