Creation of a runnability index with temporal influences
Summary
This research focuses on the effect of precipitation on running behaviour of people in the city
of Utrecht. From scientific literature, different features of the built environment are identified
that influence running behaviour. These different features are used to create a benchmark
runnability index, which is then extended with a variable depicting influences on running
behaviour depending on the precipitation level. By analysing running routes scraped from
Endomodo, the differences between dry, moderate precipitation and heavy precipitation runs
were found, which were used to quantify the influences of the environment given the
precipitation level. With these new models, the runnability scores at road level and
neighbourhood level were determined, which showed that there exist some hotspots in Utrecht
for running. Furthermore, with a correlation analysis between the different runnability indices
and running data, it was found that the extended runnability indices described the running
behaviour for different precipitation levels better, which shows that including weather in the
runnability index is useful. Further research should be focused on getting more running data to
analyse the differences and similarities between runs with different precipitation levels. With
this knowledge, the runnability index could then be improved even further.