Steps in Venice: Study to Evaluate Pedestrian Systems

Each year Venice is impacted by the large number of tourists that travel to the city for its famous celebrations and landmarks. Consequently, the number of pedestrians has been rapidly increasing and the mobility of the streets has been compromised. Beginning in 2007, data of the number of pedestrians on bridges and street segments has been collected by Worcester Polytechnic Institute students. Our project sought not only to continue this data collection, but also analyze how the numbers of pedestrians impact the streets. The pedestrian data we collected will serve several purposes. First, this data provides general information and the understanding of traffic flow on the streets. Second, the data collected will serve as a baseline to later determine the effect the installation of a new public tramline will have on the city. Our team also worked to model the infrastructure of the streets through the creation of GIS map layers as well contributed data to a Pedestrian Model. The information about the infrastructure of the streets was entered into a database accessible to the public through Venipedia pages, which can be referenced in the future to understand how the pedestrian system changes over time.