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The city of Manchester has a fast-growing population and is one of the UK’s most important commercial, retail and entertainment destinations. Regardless of how residents and visitors move around the city, almost everyone will walk or wheel as part of their journey. With aims to achieve a 70% increase in the number of trips into the city centre by active modes by 2040, targeted and transformational improvements to the city centre walking network will be required to create a more liveable and sustainable city.
Arup was commissioned by Manchester City Council (MCC) to undertake a review of the city centre walking network and develop a prioritised schedule of small-scale interventions to improve the environment for walking. The proposed interventions will seek to improve aspects such as walking connections between key attractions, street clutter, crossings and junctions, and help to ensure the areas are safe and attractive both during the day and at night.
Using our Staterra (formerly known as uMove) toolkit, which relies on open source data, we were able to review a large study area in a few short days and prioritise improvements based on key journey metrics and walkability analysis. Stakeholder engagement was central to the study, helping to make sure that there is both local and wider stakeholder buy-in to the proposals coming forward.
Project Summary
100s of kilometres of streets analysed for walk quality
30,000buildings analysed to estimate footfall demand
70%increase in walking and cycling trips into the city centre by 2040 targeted
Analysing city walkability
The study area for the project covers the entire city centre of Manchester. On a tight programme, MCC needed a fast and efficient method to understand the locations that improvements would provide the most impact. To do this, all of the streets within the city centre needed to be assessed in an efficient and consistent way. Arup’s new urban modelling toolkit, Staterra, offered a unique and robust method to do this.
Using data to better understand pedestrian mobility
Staterra is our new, digital and data-driven toolkit developed to better understand pedestrian mobility and travel demand in cities and public realm around the world. We believe in a human-centric approach that can truly recognise the needs and experience of everyday lives and Staterra can examine key mobility and land-use metrics to understand this, such as urban vitality, productivity, wellbeing and equality.
Our toolkit uses rich spatial data to answer the key questions that influence our planning decisions: Why do people travel? When do they travel? Where do they go to? How do they travel? The toolkit generates quick and flexible analysis without the need for detailed data collection. In a few short days, Staterra enabled our team to analyse and prioritise hundreds of kilometres streets – demonstrating its ability to provide a rapid approach to surveying.
An evidence-driven approach
Another benefit of using Staterra was the evidence-base it provided for the project outcomes. A person’s experience of a street is shaped by their own personal needs and abilities – Do they feel confident crossing a road? Do they have any accessibility needs? What is their gender? How old are they? – Applying the Staterra toolkit took subjectivity out of the analysis and provided the consistent and objective assessment our client was looking for.
Enabling more people to walk will support ambitions to reduce the amount of traffic in the city, providing air and noise quality improvements and making the city centre a safer environment for people to move around in. These environmental benefits will benefit specific groups in particular such as children and older people, making the city centre a more equitable and inclusive space.
Staterra: providing ongoing value
The project team has established a scalable methodology for MCC that can be repeated in future for small neighbourhoods or at a city scale. The Staterra analysis is able to provide MCC with an ongoing pipeline of priority locations for enhancement as and when funding for projects arise. The prioritisation is automated so can be quickly updated when significant changes and developments arise as the city evolves.
The Arup Journal 2023 Issue 2
Learn more about this project in issue 2 of the Arup Journal for 2023. An innovative level crossing removal in Adelaide, improving Manchester city centre streets for pedestrians and designing a new education base in Nagoya - explore these projects and more in the latest Arup Journal.
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