Abstract
•SEM of perceived accessibility, travel attitudes and behaviour.•Significant discrepancy between objective and perceived walking accessibility.•Travel attitudes are important in understanding perceptions of accessibility.•Positive perceived walking accessibility increases walking.•Perceptions of accessibility are important to understand travel behaviour.
People are driven by their perceptions. Perceptions of the environment shape mobility decisions and represent the “lived reality” of accessibility but are mostly disregarded in common accessibility analysis. This paper explores the role of perceived accessibility. By using a structural equation modelling (SEM) approach, we investigate multiple relations between travel attitudes, socio-demographic factors, objective walking accessibility, perceived walking accessibility and realised walking behaviour in three steps. Firstly, we analyse the influence of objective walking accessibility and travel attitudes on perceived walking accessibility. Secondly, we look at perceived walking accessibility as a mediator variable and, finally, we investigate the association between perceived walking accessibility and walking behaviour. Key results imply that travel attitudes are important in understanding variations in perceptions, in terms of direct effects and as mediator variables. Perceived walking accessibility directly affects the probability of walking and plays, therefore, an important role in understanding travel behaviour. The implications of our results are discussed with regard to future research gaps and policy.