Analyzing behavioral patterns in order to analyze pedestrians using Fruin's technique (Case Study: Azadi Street (Gohordasht) Karaj)

The street as a public space in the city is much more complicated than it seems. These public spaces are subject to different uses and meanings every day. The city plays a key role as a platform where citizens grow and develop. Therefore, understanding it correctly as a pillar for other researches in this field is very important. By recognizing the different groups, strata and behaviors of people and social groups with special characteristics in the city, the present research seeks to analyze the behavioral patterns of urban spaces in Azadi Street (Gohordasht) Karaj with the help of a mixed method, a combination of two sets of qualitative and quantitative research methods. This research was conducted with the help of various methods such as Fruin's technique and the preparation and completion of 193 questionnaire items based on Cochran's formula along with a field visit to Azadi Street and their behavioral patterns carried out for four weeks in three time periods: morning, noon and night which all the data and informations have been analyzed based on the impressions obtained. In order to check the reliability of the questionnaires, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used, which in this research is equal to 0.949. This shows the high reliability of the prepared and completed questionnaires. The most important innovation of this research is the attention to behavioral patterns, their role in the redesign of urban spaces, the simultaneous use of a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and the Freund analysis method, which use the concept of service level for pedestrian flow. Based on this analysis, the capacity and speed of movement can be defined in various forms of corridors and other pedestrian routes. In this method, the routes that are mostly used by pedestrians in the environment are identified and these routes are designed as pedestrian routes based on the type of use of the users in that area and environment. In this research, three components A- Functional, B- Physical and C- Environmental including 43 indicators have been investigated and analyzed in Azadi Street, Karaj. In general, the analysis of the questionnaires shows that the overall average of the combination of functional, physical, and environmental indicators is equal to 37.3%, which indicates the inappropriate and weak conditions of the studied indicators in the study area. Also, functional indicators with a satisfaction rate of 40.7%, physical indicators with a satisfaction rate of 38.7%, and environmental indicators with a satisfaction rate of 32.5% have inappropriate conditions in terms of design quality and design principles and criteria. The results show that the scope of studies in terms of various functional, physical and environmental indicators such as the indicators of security, the presence of public institutions and people's participation, the presence of children, spaces for pause and rest, proper facade design of walls and partitions, traffic conditions, etc., have not been able to attract the satisfaction of residents, passers-by, sellers and other sections of the society, and only the index of the presence of women has obtained a higher score compared to other indicators.