shared space streets: design, user perception and...

Original Article

Shared space streets: design, user perceptionand performance

Borja Ruiz-Apilaneza,*, Kayvan Karimib, Irene Garcıa-Camachac and Raul Martınc

aDepartment of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, School of Architecture, University of Castilla-LaMancha, Escuela de Arquitectura, Avda. Carlos III, s/n, 45071 Toledo, Spain.E-mail: [email protected] of the Built Environment, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College, London, UK.cDepartment of Mathematics, School of Architecture, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo, Spain.

*Corresponding author.

Abstract Shared space is becoming an increasingly well-accepted approach to street design, pursuingimprovement of street uses on foot without restricting other modes of movement. This approach introduces adegree of uncertainty regarding application of traffic rules by minimising traffic signs and conventional physicaldemarcations to enable different users to share the road space and negotiate their movement through and acrossit. Despite existing evidence for reduced traffic accidents and casualties, this type of street design remains anunorthodox approach. This article addresses the key issues of road safety, user comfort and revitalization aspectsof the shared space, raised in the last decade with a focus on pedestrian users. Based on analysis of the layout,performance and user perception of six study areas, evidence reveals how these schemes affect safety, comfort,the conventional spatial distribution or hierarchy of users, and public life.URBAN DESIGN International (2017). doi:10.1057/s41289-016-0036-2

Keywords: shared space; street design; road safety; pedestrian comfort; street vitality; public space

Introduction

Shared space is becoming a widespread yet con-troversial approach to street and public spacedesign that has attracted a great deal of attentionduring the last decade among urban designers andthose interested in improving the built environ-ment by rebalancing the conventional transporta-tion modal share and enhancing pedestrianmobility. Controversies include the appropriate-ness of the term itself, the origin of its denomina-tion, its definition and more importantly concernsregarding the performance and impact on users ofthis design approach.The term ‘‘shared space’’ has been widely used

in literature since 2000, as well as in media andamong city officials—mainly, but not only, in theEuropean context. The current proliferation ofthe term originated with the 2005–2008

Interreg III project of the same name(2005, 2008a, b), which was stimulated by theideas of Hans Monderman and his early experi-ences in The Netherlands. The early diffusion ofthis concept in the UK corresponds to one of theproject’s partners and main advocates, Hamil-ton-Baillie (2004, 2008a, b, 2014).Similarly to the term ‘‘shared space’’, different

terminologies, such as woonerf, encounter zone,home zone, shared street and shared zone, havebeen used for different street layouts that do notsegregate pedestrians from vehicles. These defini-tions have similarities and differences regardingtheir objectives and design features, as broadlydiscussed by Karndacharuk et al (2014a). Accord-ing to Hass-Klau (1990), the very same term‘‘shared space’’ was already used in the UK duringthe 1960s and 1970s, referring to a traffic-calmingstreet layout applied to cul-de-sac residential

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streets. However, the term remained unused as astreet design concept for decades, and it is onlyrecently that it has been re-coined with a relatedbut different meaning.Probably because the term was purposely not

clearly defined by those responsible for its rebirthand dissemination, currently there are a number ofdifferent definitions available: ‘‘the meaning […] isevolving as experience is gained and knowledgeexpands’’ (Shared Space et al, 2008, p. 3). Despitemore recent official definitions, such as the one bythe Department for Transport (2011), which wouldapply only in the UK, the term in this paper isintended to refer to a set of built environmentdesign principles that prefer to ‘‘combine ratherthan separate the various functions of publicspaces’’ and seek to ‘‘improve the quality of publicspaces and the living environment for people,without needing to restrict or banish motorizedtraffic’’, as originally proposed in the EU projectShared Space (2005, p. 5).On top of the above-mentioned issues, there are

others related to the functioning and impact of theshared space approach, including the traffic safetyof shared space schemes, how comfortable usersfeel sharing the space and their claimed impact onpublic life. These concerns are the main purpose ofthis investigation, since they remain unclear afterbeing partially addressed in previous studies, asfurther explained in the next section.

Research Objectives

Since the early experiences in The Netherlands,shared space schemes are reported to have effec-tively reduced traffic incidents and accidents(Commission for Architecture and the Built Envi-ronment, 2007; Euser, 2006; Hamilton-Baillie,2008a; Karndacharuk et al, 2014b). Despite thelack of sufficient published research on this topic,the greatest criticisms do not question the objectivesafety of the schemes, i.e. reduction in casualties,but focus mainly on the subjective or perceivedsafety and comfort experienced by users. Amongothers, Methorst et al (2007) argued that thedecrease in accident/casualty numbers could havebeen created by an overall reduction of pedestri-ans, caused by their discomfort with the imple-mented schemes.This issue of perceived unsafety and discomfort

is emphasised for the case of blind or visuallyimpaired users, according to the Guide Dogs forthe Blind Association (GDBA, 2006). The

qualitative report prepared for the Departmentfor Transport by MVA Consultancy (2011) showedthat 4 out of 20 blind or visually impaired userswould not use a shared space street again, basedon an experience that took place across sevendifferent sites in the UK. Quite recently, Havik et al(2015) confirmed that blind users and those withvisual impairment evaluated shared spaceschemes more negatively, based on the experienceof 25 people in two shared space locations and twoconventionally designed settings in TheNetherlands.Imrie (2012, p. 2274) argued that, for many

visually impaired people, shared space is adisabling design ‘‘enlarging socio-spatial divi-sions and inequalities in the urban environment’’.These concerns were questioned by Parkin andSmithies (2012, p. 135), who ultimately suggestedthat ‘‘shared space needs to preserve a safe areafor pedestrians’’ and ‘‘provide a rich physicalenvironment of contrasts in terms of surfacetactility, colour contrast, and the enhancement ofsound and other sensory clues’’, stressing the callfrom Methorst et al (2007) for safe areas withinshared space streets. As a result, tactile anddemarcated areas that are not accessible tovehicles, i.e. safe zones, and other contributingsolutions have emerged in the most recent sharedspace schemes.However, safety and comfort issues that are

particularly relevant to particular groups of morevulnerable users are not the focus of this research.Rather, this investigation intends to focus on themost vulnerable users of shared space streetsfrom a broader perspective, i.e. that of an averagepedestrian. Among the possible conflicts betweenusers, the focus here is placed on the pedestrian–driver interaction, given that the share of cyclistsfound in the analysed study areas (SAs) isnegligible. Therefore, the main purpose of thisresearch is to investigate how safe and comfort-able pedestrians feel in shared space streets. Ashas been advanced and is further discussedbelow, recent research by Hammond and Mus-selwhite (2013), Kaparias et al (2012) and Moodyand Melia (2014) investigated these issues, buttheir results remained inconclusive and/or con-tradictory, motivating the type of research pre-sented herein.In addition, this study tackles another important

question that has also remained inconclusive todate: Does shared space enhance public life? Thisrevitalization potential is claimed by advocates,who claim it can foster ‘‘multiple uses of streets

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and spaces for every kind of social activity’’(Hamilton-Baillie, 2008a, p. 137), and governmen-tal publications, which refer to it as a ‘‘way ofenhancing a street’s sense of place [the qualitywhich makes a street somewhere to visit andspend time in]’’ (Department for Transport, 2011,p. 6). Recent research by Biddulph (2012a, b), Curlet al (2015), Karndacharuk et al (2013), Hammondand Musselwhite (2013) and Moody and Melia(2014) is, again, often inconclusive and/or contra-dictory, making it pertinent for new research toinvestigate such social issues further. This studycarefully takes into consideration the work by theabove-cited researchers and builds on it to developan applicable set of research methods.

Methodology

This research analyses and compares six differentSAs, combining a set of different methods, includ-ing quantitative and qualitative descriptions ofstreet design and adjacent ground frontages anduses, as well as formal and informal observationsof human activity to assess performance. Further-more, an on-street user survey was used toinvestigate pedestrians’ attitudes towards theshared space street schemes. Differently from themajority of previous studies, drivers were notconsidered in this study, to focus more on pedes-trians as more vulnerable users.

Comparing streets

Similarly to the classic street liveability study byAppleyard et al (1981), the methodology applied inthis work compared six sections of Exhibition Road -and two other streets in South Kensigton, London,which offer different street layout treatments. Fourdifferent sections of Exhibition Road, a recentlyrefurbished street, account for similar but still differ-ent examples of shared space layout. Two sections oftwo different streets nearby, Queen’s Gate andCromwell Road, were examples of more conven-tional streets with kerbed footways, showing somesimilarities and differences in terms of adjacent landuse, road width, footway width, vehicular trafficflow, available sitting spaces and amount of trees.These latter two were used as a control group,

as suggested by Hammond and Musselwhite(2013, p. 95). Havik et al (2015) applied a similarapproach, comparing two shared space streetswith two conventional streets. Given the

peculiarities and variability present along Exhibi-tion Road, two control streets were included in thepresent research as well. The specifics are furtherdescribed in the section on the SAs.

Observations

A set of systematic on-street observations wereperformed, including counting, mapping and trac-ing mainly pedestrian activity. A previous pilotstudy by the authors and the reports available fromthe Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea(RBKC) on Exhibition Road (MVA Consultancy,2012, 2013a, b; SYSTRA, 2014) confirmed that lunchhours were the most active daily period in terms ofpedestrian activity. Accordingly, a series of system-atic observations were carried out from 12:00 to14:00, on both autumn weekends and weekdays, on23 and 27 November 2013, with no rain and usualLondon weather conditions for that time of year(partially cloudy and temperature around 10 �Cduring lunchtime). The following observationswere included in this study:

(a) Vehicular and pedestrian hourly volumes werecounted for the different street sections basedon two 10-min counts per hour, noting thenumber of pedestrians walking along the road;

(b) Pedestrians crossing the street at each sectionwere counted and mapped for two 10-minintervals to evaluate freedom of movementand the assumed priority for pedestrians whencrossing the carriageway;

(c) The location of people standing or sitting, theonly stationary activities observed in the area,was also recorded twice from12:00 to14:00 at thesix street sections to provide objective andcomparable data regardingon-street social activ-ity. For sitting, the observations distinguishedbetween people using primary seating (publicchairs andbenches), secondary seating (bollards,stairs, low walls and other public elements) andtertiary seating (provided by cafes, restaurantsetc.), as suggested by Ruiz-Apilanez et al (2014).

Survey questionnaire

The questionnaire was designed to evaluate peo-ple’s perception of and attitudes towards thedifferent street layouts, taking into account previousresearch on shared space with similar objectives,namely the studies of Kaparias et al (2012), which

Shared space streets


used web-based questionnaires about virtual, ver-bally described street scenarios, Hammond andMusselwhite (2013), who performed 100 on-streetquestionnaires for Widemarsh Street (Hereford,UK), andMoody andMelia (2014) on Elwick Square(Ashford, UK), which included 144 semi-structuredinterviews.The survey employed in this research includes

305 people who fully answered the followingquestions:

(1) Do you live or work in the area? (a) Yes, (b) no.(2) In a scale from 0 to 5, how safe do you feel

using this street in relation to traffic? [Asubjective slider from 0 (not safe at all) to 5(very safe) was available for the respondents].

(3) In a scale from 0 to 5, how comfortable do youfeel using this street in relation to traffic? [Asubjective slider from 0 (not comfortable at all)to 5 (very comfortable) was available for therespondents].

(4) In a scale from 0 to 5, to what extent do youagree this is a place where you’d stop andsocialise? [A subjective slider from 0 (com-pletely disagree) to 5 (completely agree) wasavailable for the respondents].

(5) When using the street, beyond which pointwould you say cars have priority over pedes-trians? (a) Kerb, (b) drainage gully, (c) trees,(d) benches, (e) parking lane, (f) lamp posts,(g) carriageway, (h) none (cars don’t havepriority over pedestrians).

(6) If crossing this part of the street at any point,would you say: (a) pedestrians have priorityover cars, (b) cars have priority over pedestri-ans, (c) they have equal priority, (d) I don’tknow.

(7) Did you know Exhibition Road before itsrefurbishment? (a) Yes, (b) no; (if yes) wouldyou prefer Exhibition Road in its previousconventional layout? (a) Yes, (b) no.

Interviewers collected the answers on a tablet,which was offered to the respondents to interactfreely through questions 2–5.

Data analysis and description of the sample

Data from on-street interviews were analysed usingthe Statistical Package for Social Sciences for furtherinterpretation. Besides descriptive analysis, inferen-tial statistical analysis was carried out using non-parametric methods: Mann–Whitney or Kruskal–Wallis tests were used depending on whether

samples originated from the same distribution fortwo groups or more than two groups; Kendall’stau-c test was employed for identifying correlationbetween ordinal data. These provided more confi-dence in results given the non-normality of theanswer distribution to questions 2–4. A significancelevel of 0.05 was considered for all tests. Themedian was considered the most representativemeasure of central tendency, and box-plots graphsare used to present the sample. The results andspecific tests employed to investigate the outcomeson different topics are discussed throughout thegeneral discussion of this article.Considering the survey sample, 309 surveys

were started and 305 were completed. Only theanswers of the latter were considered in theanalysis. Respondents were randomly picked butuniformly distributed among the six case examples.The percentages of completed interviews wereequally distributed across the SAs, ranging from16.2 to 16.8 per cent. The majority of respondents(61 per cent) knew and had experienced the previ-ous layout of Exhibition Road, and 39 per cent ofthe interviewed people lived or worked in the area,thus being considered regular users, while theremaining 61 per cent did not. Regarding demo-graphics, the gender distribution was 43 per centfemale and 57 per cent male; 6 per cent were under20 years, 59 per cent were between 20 and 39 years,24 per cent were between 40 and 65 years, and11 per cent were over 65 years of age.

Case Study Selection

In the last decade, a good number of streets havebeen redesigned by adopting shared space schemesin over 20 towns and cities across the UK, includingAshford, Bath, Bolton, Brighton, Edinburgh, Leeds,London, Manchester, Newbury, Oxford, Plymouth,Poynton, Preston, Sheffield, Southampton andothers. Some of these have been chosen as casestudies in different investigations on shared spaceand similar street schemes that allow pedestriansand vehicles to share the same surface, namely thoseof Biddulph (2010, 2012b), Curl et al (2015), Ham-mond and Musselwhite (2013), Havik et al (2015),Kaparias et al (2013, 2015), Moody and Melia (2014)and MVA Consultancy (2010, 2011).Exhibition Road, however, is the most well

disseminated, popular and recognized among allsuch cases. This was a very important reason forselecting this case study, since it makes this workmore accessible and understandable to the urban

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design community, given that a large number ofreaders might have first-hand experience of thestreet. Besides, the project enjoys a good reputa-tion in the profession, having received both aRoyal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) awardand the European Prize for Urban Public SpaceSpecial Mention in 2012, and the Civic TrustAward in 2013 (Ruiz-Apilanez and Arnaiz, 2013).The existence of previous studies on Exhibition

Road (Kaparias et al, 2013, 2015; MVA Consul-tancy, 2012, 2013a, b; SYSTRA, 2014) was alsoimportant for its selection, since this allows broaderunderstanding of the case, with different studiescomplementing each other. Furthermore, Exhibi-tion Road receives intensive and heterogeneouspedestrian use, including visitors and locals, mak-ing it appropriate to investigate whether frequencyof use and familiarity with shared space schemesinfluence street users. Lastly, Exhibition Roadmakes an interesting case study due to the numberof similarities and differences that can be foundalong the full length of the street, including layout,adjacent land use, and traffic flow. All thesespecifications are detailed in the following section.

Description of the Case Study and StudyAreas

Exhibition Road is located at the heart of a well-known cultural centre in South Kensington, Lon-don, providing access to some of the city’s mostpopular museums, namely the Victoria andAlbert, Science, and Natural History Museums,as well as prestigious academic institutions suchas Imperial College London and the Royal Geo-graphical Society. The street is about 800 m inlength, with its northern end reaching the edge ofHyde Park and the southern end close to SouthKensington underground station.The previous conventional dual-carriageway

layout was extremely congested and showed highpedestrian and vehicular traffic with a streetscapedominated by motor vehicles. The 24-m-widecross-section used to have two 4-m-wide footwaysand a 16-m-wide dual carriageway, accommodat-ing three lanes for street parking: one on each sideand a central one, separating an oversized trafficlane on each side (Figure 1). RBKC promoted theredesign of this street layout to improve theformer situation, which was considered ‘‘confus-ing for visitors and unfriendly to pedestrians’’(RBKC, 2012), and to recognize other needs of theplace beyond those related to vehicular traffic.

The project was implemented from 2008 to 2011,including a single kerb-free surface with no bar-riers and minimum street clutter, new streetlighting, new benches and trees, a 20 mph speedlimit, two 4-m-wide pedestrian safe zones, one oneach side of the street, delimited by visual andtactile lines which incorporate the gullies, and awide and direct pedestrian crossing at the inter-section with the heavily traffic-loaded CromwellRoad. As a result, the street now has a fairlyconsistent layout, although showing some differ-ences in different sections regarding adjacentbuilding frontages and land use, as well as thestreet design itself, especially in relation to ele-ments of shared space, as broadly described in thenext section.Using a set of similarities and differences, four

different SAs were identified within ExhibitionRoad, in addition to two other SAs with moreconventional layouts from nearby Queen’s Gateand Cromwell Road, considered as the control

Figure 1: Exhibition Road by the V&A and Science museum:(above) before, and (below) after.Source: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.



group. The former control street is parallel toExhibition Road with well-developed trees andsimilar roadwidth and traffic flow, similar land usealong its length, and a more pedestrian-friendlylayout than that offered by Exhibition Road beforethe change. Similar to Exhibition Road, Queen’sGate gives access to Imperial College London, butthere are no museum entrances, representing a keydifference in terms of pedestrian activity. This iswhy the other SA in Cromwell Road was identifiedprecisely at the main entrance of the Victoria andAlbertMuseum. Despite the higher traffic flow, thisSA has a generous footway with plenty of sittingfacilities and some fully grown trees, making itpotentially attractive to support stationary human

activities. The location of the six SAs is shown inFigure 2, and they are further described below.The four SAs in Exhibition Road (SA1–4) show a

24-m-wide kerb-free, homogeneously paved sur-face, including a 4-m-wide pedestrian safe zone oneach side of the street. Each SA also shows somespecific characteristics, not only regarding adjacentland use and building frontages, but also inrelation to the specific design of the street andthe presence/absence of elements of shared space.In fact, they obtain different scores when using theshared space rating (SSR) system applied in theoperational assessment report for the Departmentfor Transport. This shared space classificationquestionnaire allows streets to be rated accordingto characteristics envisaged to encourage sharing.This method gives different numbers of pointsbased on the absence of kerbs or other physicaldemarcations between pedestrian and vehicularareas, the homogeneity in surface colour treat-ment, the presence of other ‘‘public space charac-teristics’’, i.e. cafes/markets, benches, greenery orart, the non-demarcation of crossing points, andthe absence of road markings, traffic lights,bollards, guard rails and street lamps (see MVAConsultancy, 2010, p. 2.4 for further information).The remaining two areas (SA5–6), however, show

conventional layouts and therefore a significantphysical difference from the previous four, butcertain similarities in terms of land use, buildingfrontages, vegetation and absence of benches.The average hourly vehicular traffic from 12:00 to

14:00 for the six SAs was obtained from the above-described systematic counting procedure, whereasthe 85th percentile speed for the Exhibition Roadcases only was extracted from phase 4 of theExhibitionRoadMonitoringReport (SYSTRA, 2014).

Study Area 1 (SA1): Exhibition Road – South

The first SA (Figure 3) corresponds to the southend of Exhibition Road, near the undergroundstation. There is access-only one-way traffic, andparking is not permitted except for loading andunloading, so motor traffic volume is as low as79 veh/h with 85th percentile speed of 14.1 mph.The south end connects with a perpendicular

pedestrian street towards the underground sta-tion, and the north pedestrian access has onetraffic-light crossing on each side of the street.Although there are no benches, some secondaryseating is provided by the generous step around

Figure 2: Location of the SAs in London (above) and SouthKensington (below): (1) Exhibition Rd–South, (2) Exhibition Rd–Museum, (3) ExhibitionRd–University, (4) ExhibitionRd–North,(5) Queen’s Gate–University; and (6) Cromwell Rd–Museum.Source: base maps obtained from ª Crown Copyright andDatabase Right (2013). Ordnance Survey (Digimap Licence).

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the underground air shafts. This sector is com-pletely surrounded by some small shops and lotsof cafes and eateries on both sides of the street,providing plenty of tables and chairs to sit outside.There are some new trees planted on the west sideof the street, and some medium-sized street lampsare aligned with the edges of the pedestrian safezones. The shared space score for this sector is 31,as obtained from the SSR system.

Study Area 2 (SA2): Exhibition Road – Museums

The second SA (Figure 4) corresponds to the areabetween the Exhibition Road entrances to theVictoria and Albert and Science Museums. A two-way traffic area carrying medium vehicular vol-umes (573 veh/h) at speeds below 20 mph (18.8mph) occupies the central east side of the streetbetween the corresponding pedestrian safe zoneand the high lampposts that are aligned with thestreet’s central line. The delimitation of the safezone on the east side of the street is reinforced byaligned trees and bollards situated at its edge. Thecentral part on the western side of the street iseither occupied by perpendicular parking lots,bike racks and benches, or is left free. This sector ofthe street obtains a shared space score of 25,according to the SSR system.

Study Area 3 (SA3): Exhibition Road –University

The third SA (Figure 5) corresponds to the area infront of Imperial College London on Exhibition

Road. The motor traffic volume (639 veh/h) isslightly greater than in the preceding sector, SA2,but the speed is above 20 mph (22.8 mph) despitethe current 20 mph limit. The layout is almostidentical to that in SA2, but here there is novertical delimitation between the two-way trafficarea and the pedestrian safe zone on the east sideof the street. There are no bollards and almost notrees planted at the limit of the safe zone. Thebuildings on the east side are mainly houses andoffices. It gets a shared space score of 30, accordingto the SSR system.

Study Area 4 (SA4): Exhibition Road – North

The fourth SA (Figure 6) corresponds to thenorthern part of Exhibition Road, to the south

Figure 3: SA1: Exhibition Road–South. The view from thenorthern part looking southwards.

Figure 4: SA2: Exhibition Road–Museum. The view near theintersection with Cromwell Road looking northwards.

Figure 5: SA3: Exhibition Road–University. The view nearImperial College Road looking northwards.



of Hyde Park. It carries more traffic (998 veh/h) than the other sectors of the street, and thespeed (22.1 mph) is similar to that in SA3.Quite differently from the previous sectors ofthe street, the cross-section of the street issymmetrical. As happens along the wholestreet, except for the southern part, high lamp-posts are located along the central axis, buthere they separate the two traffic streams thatoccupy the whole central part of the street. Inaddition, parallel parking is permitted on bothsides of the street, by the pedestrian safe zones,which have trees planted along their edges.The buildings on both sides of the street aremainly residential, but there are some institu-tional buildings as well. The shared space scorefor this sector is 29, according to theSSR system.

Study Area 5 (SA5): Queen’s Gate – University

The fifth SA (Figure 7) corresponds to the area infront of Imperial College London on Queen’s Gate.Similarly to case study 3, one side of the street hasuniversity facilities and the other has buildings thatare mainly residential but include some offices withother professional services within. The layout isalmost identical to that of Exhibition Road before thechange, but motor traffic, although still moderate, issignificantly higher (1104 veh/h). The 30-m-widecross-section is mainly symmetrical, with 4-m-widefootways with trees and a 1-m-wide central medianwhere street lamps are located. Both carriagewaysinclude parallel parking on both sides, i.e. four linesof parking in total, and an oversized traffic lane.

Study Area 6 (SA6): Cromwell Road – Museum

The last SA (Figure 8) corresponds to the area infront of the main entrance to the Victoria andAlbert Museum at Thurloe Place, connectingCromwell Road and Brompton Road, half a blockaway from Exhibition Road. The oversized car-riageway includes two traffic lanes in each direc-tion with stopping spaces for public transport andtourist buses on both sides and a central lanededicated to left turns and taxis. Vehicular trafficvolumes are significantly higher (2256 veh/h)than in any of the other cases, as is the speedbased on mere observations. The width of thefootway in front of the museum along this SA is15 m. Besides three benches, the over 50-m-longentrance steps provide plenty of secondary seat-ing. Mature and significantly sized plane trees are

Figure 6: SA4: Exhibition Road–North. The view near theroundabout looking northwards.

Figure 7: SA5: Queen’s Gate–University. The view near theintersection with Imperial College Road looking northwards.

Figure 8: SA6: Cromwell Road-Museum. The view from theeastern part looking westwards.

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aligned by the carriageway all along the road butnot in front of the steps.

Safety and Comfort

Supporters of shared space, such as Hamilton-Baillie (2008a), advocate such schemes for theirgood performance in terms of safety, based on thereported decrease in the number of incidents,accidents and injured people (Commission forArchitecture and the Built Environment, 2007;Euser, 2006; Karndacharuk et al, 2014b).In relation to the redesigned Exhibition Road,

the final RBKC report (SYSTRA, 2014) states noaccidents and one or two daily incidents ofmotorised vehicles stopping abruptly, based on5-h observation periods at six sections of the street(four days in total, one for each of the four phasesof the study in May and November 2012 and2013). There are no available data on the previousstate, but it is claimed that the new layout is notunsafe, based on the small number of incidentsand accidents reported.Shared space opponents have argued that the

lack of incidents is due to people’s avoidance ofthe street or their use of it with greater caution,causing them stress and lack of comfort. To shedlight on this discussion, as mentioned by Ham-mond and Musselwhite (2013), Kaparias et al(2012) and Moody and Melia (2014), pedestrianswere asked to rate their perceived degree of safetyand comfort in relation to traffic while using thestreet, in the six SAs. With regards to safety, thescores given by pedestrians are shown in Figure 9.The scores are consistently high, and it is remark-able how the median is almost identical for all sixSAs, with a value of almost 4. The similarity in thedistribution of quartiles among all cases (exceptthe conventional layout in SA5) is noticeable. Inthese five cases, the top 25 per cent of scores ishigher than 4.7. Except for SA1, less than 25 percent of users at each location rated the perceivedsafety below 2.5.Regarding comfort, the scores given by pedestri-

ans showed values consistently higher than forsafety, with medians between 4.3 and 5 for all cases,and it is noteworthy that they reach that maximumvalue at two locations, SA4 and SA6. At eachlocation, less than 25 per cent of people ranked theperceived comfort below 3.4 (Figure 10).Further statistical analysis confirmed the remark-

able similarities found in the box-plot graphs forboth perceived safety and comfort, since no

significant differences were detected between theSAs (Kruskal–Wallis test: v2 = 2.698, p[ 0.05 andv2 = 2.706, p[ 0.05, respectively). According to theuser survey, and despite the significant differencesin design, vehicular volume and speed, the differentstreet layouts were perceived as safe and comfort-able—indeed very safe and comfortable—at leastwhen carrying the observed traffic flows.Looking at the amount of people walking

through the different sectors during the lunchtimeperiod, SA1 and SA2 were the busiest,

Figure 9: ‘‘In a scale from 0 to 5, how safe do you feel using thisstreet in relation to traffic?’’ Boxplot of the scores from 0 (notsafe at all) to 5 (very safe) given by pedestrians at each SA: (1)Exhibition Rd–South, (2) Exhibition Rd–Museum, (3) ExhibitionRd–University, (4) Exhibition Rd–North, (5) Queen’s Gate–University, and (6) Cromwell Rd–Museum.

Figure 10: ‘‘In a scale from 0 to 5, how comfortable do you feelusing this street in relation to traffic?’’ Boxplot of the scoresfrom 0 (not comfortable at all) to 5 (very comfortable) given bypedestrians at each SA: (1) Exhibition Rd–South, (2) ExhibitionRd–Museum, (3) Exhibition Rd-University, (4) Exhibition Rd–North, (5) Queen’s Gate–University, and (6) Cromwell Rd–Museum.



accommodating around 2000 pedestrians/h (2290and 1938 ped/h, respectively), whereas a lowernumber of people walked through sectors SA3 andSA6 (1347 and 1038 ped/h, respectively), and aneven lower number through SA5 and SA4 (660and 423 ped/h, respectively).Many different factors influence the pedestrian

flow for a particular street, but looking at thesenumbers and understanding the location of thedifferent attractors in the area, it is difficult toargue that the new implementation of ExhibitionRoad is making people avoid the street, as hasbeen suggested for other shared space areas, suchas the one in Ashford, Kent (Moody and Melia,2014).

Influence of familiarity with shared space

Regarding the attitudes, perceptions and concernsof pedestrians regarding shared space, Hammondand Musselwhite (2013) suggest that pedestrians’confidence in relation to motor traffic might belinked to their familiaritywith the non-conventionallayout. Kaparias et al (2015, p. 125) refer to a so-called ‘‘settling-down period’’, after which usersmight become accustomed to the new design.Intuitively, it does sound reasonable that peoplemight need a certain period to get used to the newlayout, and once they are familiar with the newdesign, they become more confident using it. How-ever, the good performance of shared space withregards to traffic safety is based on the uncertaindegree of awareness of the users in dealing with theintentionally less clear rules in the new layout,which might be thought to decrease once theybecome more familiar with it. Consequently, it ispertinent to investigate whether regular and non-regular users (visitors) have a different perception ofthe safety and comfort provided bydifferent layoutsand, if so, to what extent.The scores on safety and comfort given at each

of the SAs, differentiating between visitors andregular users, are shown in Figure 11. In termsof safety, SA2 and SA3 on Exhibition Roadwere rated slightly higher by regular users thanby visitors, but differences were not statisticallysignificant (Mann–Whitney test: z = -0.844, p[0.05 and z = -0.104, p[ 0.05, respectively). Con-versely, the higher scores given by non-regularusers at the other four locations were statisticallysignificant for SA1, SA4 and SA5 (z = -3.621,p\ 0.001; z = -3.161, p = 0.002; and z = -2.752,p = 0.006, respectively), but not for SA6 (z =

-0.383, p[ 0.05). In terms of comfort, regularusers consistently provided lower scores for allSAs, being of statistical significance only for SA1(z = -3.392, p = 0.01) but not any other SA(p[ 0.05 in all cases, z = -0.186, -1.41, -0.118,-1.021, and -0.632 for SA2–6).Focussing on the four occasions where scores

were significantly different, and taking intoaccount the different layouts and performance of

Figure 11: Boxplots of the scores on safety (above) and comfort(below) from 0 (not safe/comfortable at all) to 5 (verysafe/comfortable) given by visitors and regular users at eachSA: (1) Exhibition Rd–South, (2) Exhibition Rd–Museum, (3)Exhibition Rd-University, (4) Exhibition Rd–North, (5) Queen’sGate–University, and (6) Cromwell Rd–Museum.

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the three locations where this occurred, the resultsof this study do not support the notion that sharedspace users gradually and over time become moreconfident in using this type of street layout. Whatthe analysis of the surveys implies though is thatregular users are more critical about the safety andcomfort performance of the streets. It is thereforesuggested that people examine more criticallystreets with which they are familiar, which issomething that should be taken into considerationin future research.

Pedestrians’ Perceived Realm and AssumedPriority

According to the original concept of shared space,in such layouts, it is desired that traffic rules willbecome uncertain to users to some extent, so theyhave to negotiate their movements, encouraginguse of the whole width of the street. It is crucial inthis regard to recognise how different layouts inreality inform pedestrians, and how they perceivestreet function in relation to motor traffic.Two of the questions included in the question-

naire were aimed at investigating how pedestriansunderstand the functional distribution of thestreet’s cross-section and the existing hierarchybetween them and drivers. The answers given bythe pedestrians are discussed and put in context inthe two corresponding parts of this section.

Limits of pedestrian domain

Firstly, users were asked to indicate beyond whichpoint they felt cars had priority over pedestrians,choosing between ‘‘none: cars don’t have priorityover pedestrians’’ and a set of physical elements(lamp posts, kerb, drainage gully, benches, trees)and conventional function-related areas (parkingarea, carriageway). The distribution of answers atdifferent locations is plotted in Figure 12. Giventhe asymmetrical layout of the sections and tobetter understand the answers, note that allinterviews for Exhibition Road were carried outon its western side.Examining the two conventional layouts, for

SA6 it is shown that over 90 per cent of pedestri-ans set the limit of the pedestrian domain at thekerb or the carriageway, which correspond to thesame spatial limit in this specific conventionallayout with no parking. For SA5, where parking ispermitted by the footways, it is noticeable that

69 per cent of respondents located the limit of thepedestrian domain at the kerb while 22 per centopted for the parking area.In the shared space layouts, the answers varied

a lot between the SAs. SA4, which despite havinga levelled cross-section also has linear parkingbetween the designated safe zones and the trafficthoroughfare, is mostly understood as a conven-tional layout. Similarly to SA5, 62 per cent ofrespondents in SA4 set the limit of their domain atthe drainage gullies (similar to the 69 per cent whoopted for the kerb in SA5) and 20 per cent at theparking area (very similar to the 22 per cent forSA5). The perceived limit changed drastically inSA3, where only 18 per cent referred to the gullywhile more people (31 per cent) mentioned theparking area (perpendicular and far less continu-ous here) and 54 per cent set the limit in themiddle of the road (lamp posts and carriagewayrefer to the same limit here).This shift in user perception is evident for SA2,

where 70 per cent of respondents referred to themiddle of the street as the boundary of thepedestrian domain, and 18 per cent stated thatcars do not have priority over pedestrians at anypoint. For SA1, the same 88 per cent of pedestrianschose these two options, only 35 per cent thoughtthat vehicles did not have priority at all, and53 per cent referred to the carriageway. Thisprogressive extension of the perceived pedestrianlimit is confirmed by the statistical analysis,

Figure 12: ‘‘When using the street, beyond which point wouldyou say cars have priority over pedestrians?’’ Percentages ofanswers obtained at each SA: (1) Exhibition Rd–South, (2)Exhibition Rd–Museum, (3) Exhibition Rd-University, (4)Exhibition Rd–North, (5) Queen’s Gate–University, and (6)Cromwell Rd–Museum.



showing a significant direct correlation with thedifferent locations (Kendall’s tau-c test: sc = 0.631,p\ 0.001). It is inferred that a broader pedestriandomain is perceived in shared space streets than inthose with conventional layouts.Only in SA1 and SA2 did a significant number

of people (35 and 18 per cent, respectively) statethat cars do not have priority over pedestrians atany point within the street section. Consideringhow shared space is conceived to work, it isevident that it is not necessarily understood inthis way by the large majority of pedestrians.Similarly to other authors, Karndacharuk et al(2014a) argue that, over time, pedestrians mightbecome more assertive and take greater control ofthe street space, but based on this study, there isno evidence to support such an argument. Asshown in the previous section, time itself does notprove to work in the direction that one mighthope things to change.As described in the ‘Methodology’ section,

while counting pedestrians to determine the flows,those walking along the carriageway werecounted separately. The different percentagesobserved along the different SAs verify some ofthe discussion on the results of the survey. In thetwo conventional layouts, SA5 and SA6, allpedestrians walking along the street remained onthe footways, and in SA4, pedestrians walkedpredominantly along the designated safe zones.Similarly, in SA3, people used the whole sectionexcept for the carriageway. However, in SA1 andSA2, a noticeable percentage of pedestrians (7 and12 per cent, respectively) walked along the car-riageway, which in these sectors corresponds withthe part between the centre of the road and thesafe zone along the east-side buildings.Although both SA1 and SA2 did carry a large

number of people, the highest flow observed (SA2)was no higher than 7 people/min�m, consideringonly the width of the safe zones, not the wholewidth of the street. This flow is much smaller thanthose observed to make people walk out of thefootways and use the carriageway in conventionalstreets, around 13 people/min�m, according toJacobs (1993). It is therefore argued that, if peoplewalk down the carriageway along this sections, itis not because there is a lack of safe or comfort-able pedestrian space available. It is suggested thatthese people feel they have the right to use thispart of the road at these two locations, yet theystep out and occupy a different part of the streetwhen a motor vehicle approaches.

Positioning in the street and assumed priority

To clarify further the above-mentioned issue,pedestrians were also asked more precisely anddirectly about their perceived crossing priority: Ifthey wanted to get to the opposite side of the streetat any given point along each of the SAs, who hadpriority: pedestrians or drivers? People couldchoose to say that they did not know, state thatneither of them had priority over the other, orselect pedestrians or drivers.Only 8 out of the total 305 respondents

answered ‘‘I don’t know’’ (2.6 per cent). Lookingat each individual SA, the maximum number ofpedestrians who reported to feel unclear aboutthe priority was found for SA2, although therewere only three (5 per cent). This low number ofpeople who were not sure about the priority is inconflict with the behavioural assumption thatusers might get confused in a shared spaceenvironment. Quite the contrary, this researchshows that people seem to be confident about amodal crossing hierarchy when they use thestreet. The answers obtained at each location areplotted in Figure 13.

Figure 13: ‘‘If crossing this part of the street at any point, wouldyou say: (a) pedestrians have priority over cars, (b) cars havepriority over pedestrians, (c) they have equal priority, or (d) Idon’t know’’ [option (d) not plotted due to lack of responses]Percentages of answers obtained at each SA: (1) Exhibition Rd–South, (2) Exhibition Rd–Museum, (3) Exhibition Rd-University, (4) Exhibition Rd–North, (5) Queen’s Gate–University, and (6) Cromwell Rd–Museum.

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To understand how pedestrians’ assumptionsrelate to the applicable traffic regulations, it isimportant to point out that, in the two conven-tional streets, where it might be assumed that allusers are aware that cars do have legal priority,less than 75 per cent agreed with this assumption.This suggests that about 20–30 per cent of peoplemight be answering this question based on theirown behaviour or personal values regardingtransportation modal priorities, rather than con-sidering actual traffic regulations.Considering the people who believed cars had

priority over pedestrians, three groups can bedifferentiated among the SAs. In the first group(SA4–6), over 70 per cent of pedestrians consideredthat cars had priority. In the second group (SA2and SA3), approximately 50 per cent of pedestriansagreed with vehicular predominance, and in thethird group (SA1), only 30 per cent stated that carshad priority over pedestrians. Again, there arelarge discrepancies across the four shared spacesections studied.To contrast what pedestrians reported with their

actual behaviour, crossing behaviour was alsoobserved in the six areas. To establish a more

significant assessment, the comparisons focus onequal-length stretches that include designatedpedestrian crossings, except for SA3, which hasno designated crossing along the whole stretch.The registered 5-min interval of maximum

crossing activity at each location is presented inFigure 14, indicating the number of those using thedesignated pedestrian crossings and those cross-ing at other points of the street. SA4 is not takeninto consideration since its low pedestrian activity,especially in terms of crossing, makes it irrelevantfor the study.Analysis of the traces and the number of

crossings reveals two facts. First, the highestabsolute and relative numbers of crossings outsidethe designated crossings were found for SA1 andSA2, being much higher than for SA5 and SA6.Second, the traces are much more homogeneouslydistributed along SA1–3 than along SA5 and SA6.The observed crossing patterns suggest that

pedestrians behave more freely and makebroader use of the street surface in shared spacestreets than in those with conventional layouts. Inthis regard, it is informative to compare SA3and SA5 to find out how differently a similar

Figure 14: Pedestrians crossing the street during the busiest registered 5-minute interval at each SA: (1) Exhibition Rd–South, (2)Exhibition Rd–Museum, (3) Exhibition Rd-University, (4) Exhibition Rd–North, (5) Queen’s Gate–University, and (6) Cromwell Rd–Museum.



number of people, entering and leaving theuniversity campus, behave on the equivalentstreet stretches to the west and east of ImperialCollege London, on Exhibition Road and Queen’sGate, respectively.The great contrast observed among the differ-

ent SAs and within those on Exhibition Roadconfirms that the actual street designs do make adifference in how the space is used and alsoshows how the different treatments of sharedspace do impact differently on pedestrians’ per-ception and behaviour.

Socialisation

Shared space is claimed to foster social activity(Department for Transport, 2011; Hamilton-Baillie,2008a), although available research is not conclu-sive on this matter. On the one hand, Biddulph(2012a, b) found that shared streets in residentialareas (UK home zones) were more successful thanconventional traffic-calming solutions, althoughthis would mainly benefit children and thoselooking after them, and Karndacharuk et al(2013) found increases in pedestrian occupancyafter shared space street implementation. On theother hand, Curl et al (2015) did not find evidenceof positive change in outdoor social activity. WhileHammond and Musselwhite (2013) found that57 per cent of users of a shared space scheme inHereford, UK would stop and socialise, 65 per

cent reported ‘‘no’’ to the same question asked byMoody and Melia (2014) for another case inAshford, UK.Due to the significant disagreement between the

findings of various studies and to allow compar-ison with them, the questionnaire designed for thisinvestigation included the question ‘‘In a scalefrom 0 to 5, to what extent do you agree this is aplace where you’d stop and socialise?’’ The scorespeople provided at each location are shown inFigure 15.In this case, the results vary again greatly across

SAs in general and also across the shared spaceones. SA1 is seen by the majority of pedestrians asa great place to socialise, with over 50 per cent ofpeople giving the maximum score. In both SA2and SA3, the median was slightly over 3 and therange of responses varied greatly, from 0 to 5.This variation was also found for the remainingthree locations (SA4–6), although in these casesthe scores were lower and their medians remainedbetween 1.1 and 1.9. Further statistical analysisconfirmed the described significant differencesbetween these three different groups: SA1, SA2–3and SA4–6 (Kruskal–Wallis test: v2 = 60.796,p\ 0.001), while revealing no significant differ-ences in intention to socialise between regular andnon-regular users at each location (Mann–Whit-ney test: p[ 0.05 in all cases, z = -1.244, -1.796,-0.463, -0.325, -0.9 and -0.606, for SA1–6,respectively).In this sense, ground-floor uses and frontages

greatly affect the perception of pedestrians (Borstet al, 2008; Gehl, 2010; Jacobs, 1993). Therefore,the perceived differences between areas withsimilar ground-floor use, e.g. SA2 and SA6 (bothsharing museum entrances) or SA3 and SA4 (bothsharing university campus entrances), suggestthat these significant discrepancies in users’perceptions are related to the substantial changesin street design, and therefore that shared spaceschemes have potential to modify the socialappeal of the street.The actual social activity at the different SAs

was systematically mapped to contrast with peo-ple’s perceptions. The observations of how peopleoccupied the street while engaging in more

Figure 15: ‘‘In a scale from 0 to 5, to what extent do you agreethis is a place where you’d stop and socialise?’’ Boxplot of thescores from 0 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree)given by pedestrians at each SA: (1) Exhibition Rd–South, (2)Exhibition Rd–Museum, (3) Exhibition Rd–University, (4)Exhibition Rd–North, (5) Queen’s Gate–University, and (6)Cromwell Rd–Museum.

cFigure 16: Maximum registered stationary activity [peoplestanding (orange), sitting-primary (light blue), sitting-secondary(dark blue), and sitting-tertiary (deep purple)] at each SA: (1)Exhibition Rd–South, (2) Exhibition Rd–Museum, (3) ExhibitionRd-University, (4) Exhibition Rd–North, (5) Queen’s Gate–University, and (6) Cromwell Rd–Museum.

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optional and social stationary activities partiallyconfirm the discussion of the survey results andprovide further information for analysis. To facil-itate comparison between locations, the observedstationary human activities, including standingand sitting (using primary, secondary or tertiaryseating), are plotted for equal-length stretches ofthe six SAs, showing the busiest snapshot from12:00 to 14:00 (Figure 16).These snapshots emphasise the difference

between the complete lack of activity in SA4 andSA5 and the bustle in SA1, with lots of peoplesitting outdoors, despite the lack of primaryseating. This of course has to do with the existingground-floor uses of the buildings, such as cafesand restaurants, which provide plenty of tertiaryseating. However, the use of the shared spaceavailable beyond the safe zones (former footways)suggests a symbiotic relationship between theadjacent land uses and public space uses, with astrengthening, intensifying effect.Observations however are not helpful to con-

firm the differences observed by users betweenSA2 and SA3 (both sociability medians above 3.0),and SA6 (below 2.0). It is suggested that these twoareas of Exhibition Road (SA2 and SA3) do havesome undeveloped potential to engage people instationary activities. It can easily be imagined thatincrementing seating possibilities and introducingother attractors, e.g. street food vendors (Whyte,1980), would probably result in a decisive trans-formation of these locations in terms of socialactivity.

Users’ Overall Outlook

As highlighted above, shared space is to someextent a rather controversial approach to streetdesign, about which people have expressed differ-ent opinions regarding its key aspects, sometimesvarying greatly depending on the particularities ofeach design and location, as also shown by thisstudy. To grasp the final overall opinion of thegeneral public, and in the absence of data on theprior-to-implementation state, Hammond andMusselwhite (2013) asked users to self-report abefore and after comparison. Seventy-four per centof those who had experienced the street before andafter preferred the new, shared space design. Thisclear positive attitude towards the new layout wastaken with some reservation by the same research-ers, arguing that only people actually using the

street participated in the survey, so it might bepossible that those not so in favourof thenew layoutcould be avoiding the street and, thus, had not beentaken into consideration.It can also be argued that people could be more

likely to be in favour of the implemented scheme,just because of its newness, in opposition to thepoorer state that the previous, old layout mighthave presented. Probably in order to cancel thisnew–old dichotomy, Moody and Melia (2014,p. 7) reformulated the question and asked peopleif they would ‘‘prefer traditional pavements andtraffic light crossings’’ instead. In this case, 64 percent of people preferred the more conventionallayout.The present study considers all those who

knew Exhibition Road before the new implemen-tation, when using either the shared spaceschemes (SA1–SA4) or conventional layouts(SA5 and SA6). Pedestrians were asked if theypreferred the previous layout of the street. Asubstantial majority of 72 per cent preferred thenew shared space layout. This percentage turnedout to be remarkably consistent across all loca-tions: 71 per cent in the case of those using theshared space and 73 per cent of those walking inthe conventional streets.Considering these results and some of the

differences found in users’ perceptions and theperformance of the different locations, it wouldhave been informative to ask whether there was asection or layout that users particularly preferredover the others. This will be taken into consider-ation in future research.

Conclusions

This study aimed to further enhance our under-standing of how safe and comfortable pedestriansfeel in a shared space environment, as well as ourunderstanding of the potential of this street designapproach for enhancing public life. The resultsshow that average pedestrians find the sharedspace layouts of the analysed SAs both safe andcomfortable in relation to traffic, at least as safeand comfortable as more conventional streets.However, and rather differently from what hasbeen suggested by other authors previously, thisresearch indicates that the perception and attitudeof pedestrians do not improve with time nordepend on their familiarity with a specific sharedspace scheme.

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This does not mean that people are non-respon-sive or unaffected by street design. This researchreveals that, at least for these six SAs, the veryopposite is true by, firstly, showing how theperceived limit of the pedestrian domain variesgreatly depending on the street layout, andsecondly, by illustrating the movements alongand across the streets and how the perceivedcrossing priority between pedestrians and driversdiffers among the SAs.The capacity of shared space schemes to

enhance public life has been investigated byprevious research, but the outcomes have notbeen conclusive. This study confirms that streetdesign is a powerful tool to transform the builtenvironment and influence people’s perceptionand use of the street space in relation to stationarypublic and social activity. However, ground-floorbuilding frontages and uses also play a decisiverole in this regard, being even more decisivesometimes.Considering this research and that by other

authors cited throughout the text, it is suggestedthat shared space can no longer be approached asa homogeneous element and that it is necessary tounderstand that questions such as ‘‘Do sharedspace streets work?’’, ‘‘Are shared space streetssafe?’’, and the like, may no longer be valid, in thesame way that questions such as ‘‘Do pedestrianstreets work?’’ or ‘‘Are highways safe?’’ would beconsidered too general or unspecific to beanswered in any accurate way.In the view of recent efforts to create simplistic

evaluation tools to quantify the degree of sharedspace, such as that used in the report for theDepartment for Transport (MVA Consultancy,2010), this research suggests that shared spaceshould rather be considered as a street and publicspace design approach that lies beyond the mereinclusion/exclusion of a number of features, e.g.traffic signals, levelled surface, kerbs, clutter anddemarcations, benches, greenery or art, and trafficsignals. Conversely, more comprehensive methodsincluding both qualitative and quantitative tech-niques are required, some of which have beenincluded in that same report.Based on some of the similarities and differences

found along Exhibition Road, it must be empha-sized that users’ perceptions and the performanceof shared space cannot be advanced based on theaccumulation of ‘‘elements of shared space’’ (Ka-parias et al, 2013, p. 115). Rather, it is the streetlayout as a whole that makes a difference. Deepand detailed understanding of its design,

environment and surroundings is necessary toassess any future implementations.After over a decade of shared space practice,

including a good number of successful examplesand some research, it is suggested that moreresearch is required, probably not to keep ques-tioning the core concept itself, but rather to testand evaluate the different outcomes, to betterunderstand the particularities of different cases interms of the design considerations, user percep-tions and performance.In this regard, the lack of consistent and com-

parable before–after case studies as well as theimportance of enabling accurate comparisonbetween future studies should be emphasised.The present investigation has made an effort toestablish a dialogue with other researchers bycarefully considering their methods and findingsto incorporate or discuss them as appropriate. Thespirit has been to make this work as useful aspossible for the urban design community, and werecommend that forthcoming research shouldoperate in a similar way.Lastly, it must be stressed that the shared space

approach to public space design encourages a‘‘focus shift from project to process’’ (Besley, 2010,p. 6) and highlights the importance of includingparticipatory design techniques. However, thisresearch and most other research published todate focusses on evaluation of implemented pro-jects and not the implementation process. Thisshould be taken into consideration not only bypublic administrators and designers but also forfuture research.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the University ofCastilla-La Mancha under the CYTEMA-PUENTEgrants. The authors would like to acknowledge theinvaluable help with the street audits provided byMayte Arnaiz, Lucy Donegan and Fanni Kos-torous, and would also like to thank the twoanonymous reviewers for their detailed evalua-tion, constructive attitude and valuable comments.

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