New Walkability App

The Walkability App, available in the Apple and Google stores, allows citizens of all ages and abilities to share their walking experiences. Sharing walking experiences helps communities and responsible authorities to understand walkable places and identify areas that need further improvement to make walking better for everyone. Walking should be safe and enjoyable for everyone. When it isn’t, we walk less, and loose the health, social, environmental, and economic benefits associated with living in more walkable places.

The new app is coordinated by Walk21 Foundation, in partnership with Alstom, City of Lisbon and EIT Climate KIC. It builds on the success of earlier versions that have already helped children in Colombia and Rwanda, women in Ireland, and public transport users in Lagos, Belgrade, Cairo and Lusaka benefit from public space upgrades after sharing their walking experiences.

New functionalities include being able to add photos related to the experience, collect data offline, edit or update observations with latest information, or choose user roles for different types of data collection. The app also includes some gamification, communication, and social features to build walking communities and encourage participation. The App is already available in English, Spanish, Greek and Portuguese. It will be available in French, Italian, Dutch, German, Swedish and Norwegian before the end of the year.

The Walkability app is launched at the Walk21 Portugal conference on 16th October 2024 in Lisbon. The event is the 24th in the annual series of international conversations on walking and liveable cities. More than 500 representatives of communities, advocacy groups, practitioners, and politicians are gathering, from more than 50 countries, to discuss how best to improve urban mobility, benefit public health, create vibrant societies, and mitigate climate change.

Ângelo Pereira, Deputy Mayor Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, says:

“Data collection on the experience of walking is essential for our understanding of the citizen pedestrian needs, developing the best policies and evaluating measures. This project will give us the opportunity to create better information and processes for transforming Lisbon into a city of excellence for walking.”

Charlotte May, Climate KIC says:

“EIT Climate-KIC is delighted to be supporting Lisbon and Walk21 to develop the Walkability.App. This innovative project will improve data collection and citizen engagement in Lisbon and beyond, helping city planners to better identify barriers and prioritize improvements to make walking and wheeling safer and more attractive for everyone. By sharing knowledge and best practices between cities, we can tackle challenges such as decarbonisation and sustainable mobility at a faster speed and scale.” 

Veronique Andries, Alstom VP Sustainability & CSR says:

“Alstom is proud to support the development of the new Walkability app, which makes it even easier for people to take an active role in improving walkability in their cities. By enabling more walking we can reduce carbon emissions while at the same time improving accessibility within our communities, delivering for both individual citizens and the planet.”

Dr Carlos Cañas, Walkability App Lead at Walk21 says:

“We believe that pedestrians’ needs and experiences should play a key role in studying, planning and designing public space. This requires new ways of observing, measuring, analysing, and interpreting the walkable environment. The app is an affordable and accessible tool for policymakers, researchers, and advocates to ensure everyone’s walks are safe, comfortable, and enjoyable. I encourage you to download the app and share your walking experiences to help make walking better for everyone, everywhere”.

Walk21 Foundation, a UK charity, works globally to create safe, accessible, and welcoming places for people to walk. Since 2017, Walk21 has been supported by CEDEUS, GIZ, Alstom Foundation, and others, to develop tools that help make a positive impact. Special thanks to Alstom, the Municipality of Lisbon, and EIT Climate-KIC for their support with creating the new Walkability app.

MORE INFORMATION

Walkability App website: https://www.spotteron.com/walkability/

Walkability App for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotteron.walkability

Walkability App for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/walkability/id6673912590

Walk21 website: https://walk21.com/resources/walkability-app/