Pedestrians, while walking alone, feel unsafe and vulnerable in certain outdoor spaces at certain times of the day. This fear of victimisation often leads pedestrians to avail costlier alternatives, such as taking viable detours or abandoning walking altogether and switching to alternative forms of transport. This fear reduces the appeal of walking, the most basic transport mode, and one that is essential for preserving our physical and mental health. In this study, we introduce walk-sharing, a hypothetical buddy-service, which is aimed at encouraging people to choose walking when it is viable, and not pursue alternative modes. In walk-sharing, a potential pedestrian will get matched to another so that they are able to walk together, instead of walking alone, and thus overcome any potential fear that arises out of seemingly unsafe walking environments. To understand whether walk-sharing can be beneficial for the community, this study will outline its core concepts and explore its viability under different plausible scenarios. We use agent-based modelling techniques under synthetic and realistic scenarios to understand the conditions in which walk-sharing will produce acceptable outcomes.

行人独自一人行走时，会在一天中的某些特定时间在某些室外空间感到不安全和易受伤害。这种对受害的恐惧常常导致行人采用更昂贵的替代方案，例如绕行可行的弯路或完全放弃步行并改用其他运输方式。这种恐惧降低了行走的吸引力，而行走是最基本的交通方式，也是维持我们的身心健康所必不可少的。在这项研究中，我们介绍步行共享，一种假想的伙伴服务，旨在鼓励人们在可行时选择步行，而不是追求其他方式。在步行共享中，潜在的行人将与另一个行人相匹配，以便他们能够一起行走，而不是独自行走，从而克服了看似不安全的步行环境引起的任何潜在恐惧。为了了解步行共享是否对社区有益，本研究将概述其核心概念并探讨其在不同情况下的可行性。我们在综合和现实情况下使用基于代理的建模技​​术来了解步行共享将产生可接受结果的条件。