Exploring the association between street built environment and street vitality using deep learning methods

Street vitality has become an essential indicator for evaluating the attractiveness and potential of the sustainable development of urban blocks, and it can be reflected by the type and the frequency of people's pedestrian activities on the street. While it is recognized that street built environment features affect pedestrian behavior and street vitality, quantifying the impact of these characteristics remains inconclusive. This paper proposes an automated deep learning approach to quantitatively explore the association between the street built environment and street vitality. First, we established a deep learning model for street vitality classification for automatic evaluation of street vitality based on the volumes and activities of pedestrians in the street through multiple object tracking and scene classification. Then, we applied semantic segmentation to measure five selected vitality-related street built environment variables. Finally, a linear regression model was applied to evaluate the built environment variables’ significance and effects on street vitality. To verify our method's accuracy and applicability, we selected a commercial complex in Osaka as an illustrative example. The experimental results highlight that street width and transparency have significant positive effects on street vitality. Compared with traditional methods, our approach is feasible, reliable, transferable, and more efficient.