GIS mapping of interdisciplinary data. Urban characteristics affecting passengers' perceptino of safety at train stations.

This study is part of a PhD project about the urban environment’s influence on passengers’ perception of safety in public transport. It suggests GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping as a research platform for analyzing interdisciplinary data related to urban public transport nodes. The focus of the analysis is to locate and measure parameters influencing passengers’ perception of safety at the train stations. GIS mapping makes it possible to create layers of geographic information and to identify correlations between interdisciplinary types of urban information like planning typologies and passengers’ perception of safety. GIS mapping is a strong communication tool to inform transport decision makers — politicians, chief executives from DSB (Danish State Railway) and planning authorities in Danish municipalities — about the different urban parameters that influence passengers’ perception of safety at transport nodes. The results indicate that data should have strong correlations to communicate a graphic result in GIS and a statistical correlation analysis is needed for correlations not graphically traceable.The second part of the study suggests a sketch for a scheme to measure CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) related parameters in the built urban environment and thus measure how parameters in the urban layout influence passengers’ perception of safety. The result indicates that the method is functional and is to be further developed.