Assessing the quality of urban sidewalks with an emphasis on tourist satisfaction (Case study: Modares Street Pedestrian Street in Kermanshah)

Background and Purpose

Walking and pedestrian movement are among the simplest and oldest ways for people to move around in different environments. What has been noted in cities today is that the erasure of history and the erasure of collective memories to increase pedestrian routes and the attention of officials only to meet the needs of pedestrians has caused the decline of visual values, and the result is that when the scale of the city is built only for pedestrians, sidewalks in urban space feel lost, insecure, and without identity. Walking is the oldest and most necessary form of human movement in the environment; and walking is still the most important possibility for observing places and activities, feeling the passion and movement of life, and discovering the values ​​and attractions hidden in the environment. Walking is of fundamental importance in the perception of spatial identity, the feeling of belonging to the environment, and the perception of environmental qualities; therefore, the face of the city is felt more through walking in urban space.
Methods
The present study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the quality of the sidewalks of Modares Street in Kermanshah with an emphasis on tourist satisfaction.
The research method is descriptive-analytical and applied-practical in terms of purpose. The data collection method was two-fold: documentary and survey methods, in such a way that documentary methods and questionnaire tools were used to extract the desired indicators and develop theoretical foundations; and survey methods and researcher-made questionnaire tools were used to measure the research indicators in the study area. In this study, the statistical population includes tourists in Kermanshah. Based on the Cochran formula, the number of samples considered for Modares Street in Kermanshah is 245 people, and the sampling method is also simple random. In order to analyze the data, independent single-sample t-test statistical tests were used to examine the average dimensions of the quality of urban sidewalks; and the Mabak multi-criteria decision-making model was used to rank the research components. It should be noted that the criteria for ranking the components were the data obtained from the questionnaire (response rate). For weighting, according to the Likert scale, the highest score corresponds to the option “very high” and the lowest score corresponds to “very low”. To examine the reliability of the questionnaire or its reliability, the Cronbach’s alpha test was used as described in Table 2.
Therefore, the desired indicators were first extracted from the relevant literature, then these indicators were evaluated and analyzed in the study area.
Findings and Discussion
The overall results showed that pedestrianization is a new movement arising from new approaches to urban planning, which has been discussed in the tourism discussion in recent decades under the title of “tourist pedestrianization” and has a special place in the organization of cities. Given the location of Modares Street in the historical context of Kermanshah and the presence of important historical sites and shopping centers and its historical, cultural, social, and economic character, great attention should be paid to it and the necessary conditions should be provided for it so that it can play a more prominent role in urban tourism in Kermanshah. According to the findings, except for the accessibility and connectivity-penetration component of the Modares Street pedestrian walkway in Kermanshah (with an actual average of 3.08), the other components are in a very unfavorable situation. In other words, the average obtained in all the components in question is less than the assumed average of 3. The lowest average obtained was related to their climatic comfort component, which is equal to 2.1600. In the following, the MABAK multi-criteria decision-making model was used to rank the basic components of the quality of thesidewalk in Kermanshah.
Conclusion
The results obtained from this study indicate the inability and lack of suitable conditions for Modares Street in Kermanshah to become a successful pedestrian street. Therefore, factors for improving the quality of the sidewalk and examining the challenges on this street have been addressed in order to optimize the sidewalk. By using it and also taking help from the opinions of local people and using it in the implementation, it is hoped to achieve a successful sidewalk on Modares Street.