Work

Title Pending

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Car-oriented development is a primary contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. The focus on speed and user comfort is made possible through vehicle design and built environments that facilitate uninterrupted car travel. In response, the transition to sustainable mobility requires making active modes like walking and cycling as attractive and comfortable as cars. While feasibility, accessibility, and safety have been widely addressed in research, comfort in active mobility has been understudied. The aim of this research is to address this gap by understanding what walking and cycling comfort is and how it has been studied through a systematic literature review. Key findings from reviewing 58 scholarly articles show a steady growth in the topic over the last decade. Geographically, the research is led by US and China. While cycling comfort is largely discussed in the transport research field, walking comfort is more diversely studied in urban planning, health, environmental and computer sciences. Using surveys and questionnaires prevails in data collection methods as well as statistical analyses. Less than 30% of the studies provide a definition of comfort. A wide range of indicators has been developed, spanning from traffic-related factors to the built environment, greenery and aesthetics. The research also reveals the dominance of safety measures as well as lack of unanimous approach to studying comfort in the field. Mainly based on these insights, we propose a theoretical framework for understanding comfort in active mobility upon three pillars: Built environment including traffic elements, safety and security, surrounding buildings, etc., Natural environment concerning microclimate and thermal comfort, and Personal characteristics such as demographics, needs, habits and preferences. We argue that active mobility comfort deserves its own line of research independent of safety, and the proposed framework offers a structured basis for advancing this research agenda.

Source: Active Travel Studies

DOI: 10.16997/ats.2123

Authors: Mahtab BaghaiePoor, Lea S. Zuckriegl, David Duran-Rodas, George Liu, Gebhard Wulfhorst

Institution: Technical University of Munich

Language: English

Topic: Urban Transport and Accessibility

Subfield: Transportation

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Sustainable cities and communities

Open Access status: diamond

Funder: HORIZON EUROPE Climate, Energy and Mobility