Athens introduces digital tool to encourage walking

Aiming to encourage walking, the Athens Municipality has introduced a digital tool with valuable data informing citizens and local authorities about the state of sidewalks and streets in the Greek capital.

The new Geospatial Observatory of Walkability was developed in collaboration with the Sustainable Mobility Unit of the National Technical University of Athens. The digital maps and other valuable information are posted on the website walkable.cityofathens.gr.

The project used recent panoramic images (360°) of both sides of the 1,000 kilometers of streets in the Athens municipality, pedestrian movement sensors and other relevant data.

“It took three years of work to complete. We went through all the streets and sidewalks of the municipality, either by car equipped with cameras or on foot,” said Dr Alexandros Bartzokas-Tsiompras, urban planner and general coordinator of the Walkable Athens project, noting that programmers and graphic teams digitally captured the multiple parameters on maps.

The digital database was created independent of Google or other commercial platforms.