Assessing Walking and Cycling Environments in the Streets of Madrid: Comparing On-Field and Virtual Audits

Gullón, Pedro; Badland, Hannah; Alfayate, Silvia; Bilal, Usama; Escobar, Francisco; Cebrecos, Alba; Díez, Julia; Franco, Manuel

doi:10.1007/s11524-015-9982-z

Cited by 75 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Results consistently indicated a somewhat higher inter-rater reliability for audits completed on-site compared to online. However, inter-rater reliability results were generally high in both assessment-methods and were higher than observed in some other studies [18, 20, 41]. Only a study of Kelly and colleagues [16] reported higher inter-rater results for Google Street View ratings of the physical neighborhood environment, in which 95% of the items generated substantial to perfect agreement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

“…For example, Gullón and colleagues [20] found low agreement between on-site raters, but also between Google Street View raters, for walking and cycling surface (e.g., path smoothness, path material), aesthetics (e.g., maintenance of gardens, attractiveness, cleanliness) and traffic controls in the neighborhood environment when evaluating the M-SPACES in Spain. In the present study, most low-reliability items were observed among items with little variance in the answers, as the percentage agreement was generally high for those items (>70% percentage agreement) [42, 43].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Observers are sometimes exposed to personal safety risks. To overcome these limitations of on-site audit tools, several Google Street View-based audits have been developed [12, 14–20]. With Google Street View-based audits, auditors can ‘virtually’ walk the streets and observe the physical environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Completing a Google Street View-based audit is faster compared to on-site assessments, mainly due to travel time differences [12–15, 21]. Recent studies have shown good intra- and inter-rater reliability of Google Street View-based audit tools [16, 18–20] and reported good agreement between on-site and online audit tools [12, 14, 15, 18–20]. However, lower agreement between on-site and online assessments were reported for qualitative and more detailed data (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…sidewalk condition, aesthetics, physical disorder [litter]) or rapidly changing items (e.g. traffic volume) [12, 14, 15, 19, 20]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Using an audit tool (MAPS Global) to assess the characteristics of the physical environment related to walking for transport in youth: reliability of Belgian data

et al. 2016

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BackgroundThe aim was to examine inter-rater and alternate-form reliability of the Microscale Audit of Pedestrian Streetscapes (MAPS) Global tool to assess the physical environment along likely walking routes in Belgium.MethodsFor 65 children participating in the BEPAS-children study, routes between their individual homes and the nearest pre-defined destination were defined. Using MAPS Global, physical environmental characteristics of the routes were audited by 4 trained auditors (2 on-site, 2 online using Google Street View). Inter-rater reliability was studied for on-site and online ratings separately. Alternate-form reliability was examined by comparing on-site with online ratings.ResultsInter-rater reliability for on-site ratings was acceptable for 68% of items (kappa range 0.03–1.00) and for online ratings for 60% of items (kappa range −0.03 to 1.00). Acceptable alternate-form reliability was reported for 60% of items (kappa range −0.01 to 1.00/r range 0.31–1.00).ConclusionsMAPS Global can be used to assess the physical environment of potential walking routes. For areas where Google Street View imagery is widely covered and often updated, MAPS Global can be completed online.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12942-016-0069-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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