Priority-Setting Methodology of Qualitative and Quantitative Analyses for Pedestrian Road Construction: Case Study of a National Highway in South Korea

This study aimed to propose a priority-setting methodology for the construction of pedestrian roads using a set of evaluation methods distinguished from the conventional system using social overhead capital(SOC) evaluation with a focus on economic analysis. Four evaluation indicators were selected in this study: pedestrian fatality risk, surrounding infrastructure, potential pedestrian demand, and manager’s opinion, with a total of 12 attributes across the indicators. Each attribute was designed to allow a quantitative or qualitative evaluation and had a method of estimating and scoring each attribute for set criteria. Regarding the weighting of evaluation indicators, the Analytic Hierarchy Process was applied as the most widely used method in multi-criteria decision making. The highest weightage was placed on pedestrian fatality risk and surrounding infrastructure among the evaluation indicators and traffic accidents of pedestrian fatality risk among the attributes. To determine the practical application of the proposed methodology, a single-site evaluation was conducted, followed by 385 sites in a similar manner for priority setting. The methodology of priority setting for pedestrian roads proposed in this study can be applied to the priority setting for pedestrian roads, smaller-scale SOC projects including bicycle roads.