A Study of Walking Perceptions in Large Underground Parking Lots

Abstract

With the acceleration of urbanization and the popularity of cars and other means of travel, underground parking lots have become a key node site for switching from driving to walking for mass travel. Due to the closed space, complex terrain and large number of parking lots, pedestrians in underground parking lots will face challenges such as unclear direction and difficult to find entrances and exits. To address this situation, taking the underground parking lot of a large shopping center as an example, based on spatial syntax and other theories, we calculate the convex spatial integration degree, visual integration degree, and walking distance and other indicators to comprehensively assess the walking perception of the underground parking lot, and then analyze the walking perception of pedestrians in each area of the underground parking lot and the change of the walking perception under different parking rates. The results show that: (1) The average value of the overall walking perception of the underground parking lot is low, only 0.41, indicating that pedestrians have difficulties in locating entrances and exits. (2) With the increase of parking rate, the global average walking perception of underground parking lot decreases significantly from 0.41 to 0.25, which indicates that the increase of vehicles leads to the deterioration of pedestrians' walking experience, especially in the case of high parking rate, which makes it difficult for pedestrians to locate entrances and exits. The results of the study can provide practical references for the pedestrian planning of underground parking lots, the spatial layout and optimization of guide signs, and provide a basis for the development of effective strategies to improve the access efficiency and user experience of underground parking lots.