How it works

WalkReach answers one question: from a given spot in Hamilton, how much of everyday life can you reach on foot?

Walking distance, not straight-line distance

Most “minutes from the shops” claims measure distance as the crow flies. People do not walk that way. A supermarket 400 m away in a straight line can be a 2 km walk if the Waikato River is in between and the nearest bridge is further along.

WalkReach routes every walk over the real network of streets, footpaths and walkways, so bridges, dead ends, rail lines and the river all count, just as they would if you walked it.

The three walking bands

Walking speed is taken as 1.4 m/s, about 5 km/h. That turns 5, 10 and 15 minutes into distances of 417 m, 833 m and 1,250 m along the network.

When you pick a spot, WalkReach finds the nearest point on the walking network and follows every path outward until it has walked 1,250 m. The shaded bands on the map outline the places reached within each distance. The outline is drawn around the points reached on the network, so treat the edge as approximate.

The score

The score out of 100 is shared across five everyday essentials. Each one has a maximum number of points, weighted by how often most people need it.

For each essential, only the nearest one counts. Its points fall off in a straight line with walking distance. Right next door earns full marks, and 1,250 m (a 15 minute walk) or more earns nothing.

For example, from the city centre the nearest supermarket is a 403 m walk. That earns 30 × (1 − 403 ÷ 1,250) = 20.3 of its 30 points.

The label next to the score, from “Car-dependent” up to “Everything close by”, is a plain-language reading of the same number.

What counts as each essential

• Supermarket: supermarkets, not dairies or convenience stores.
• Clinic: clinics, GP practices and hospitals. Pharmacies are not counted, because you cannot see a doctor at one.
• School: places mapped as schools. Kindergartens are not counted, because only a household with a preschooler has any use for one.
• Park: public parks.
• Bus stop: bus stops and platforms.

Parks, schools and other places with a mapped footprint are measured to the nearest part you can walk up to, not to their centre. A large park that runs along your street is right there, even if its middle is 200 m away.

Data and tools

• Streets, footpaths and amenities come from OpenStreetMap.
• Routing runs in PostgreSQL with PostGIS and pgRouting.
• The map is drawn with MapLibre GL over OpenStreetMap tiles.
• Address search uses Nominatim, limited to Hamilton.

Limitations

• The results are only as good as OpenStreetMap. A missing footpath makes a walk look longer than it is, and an unmapped supermarket is not counted.
• Only the nearest of each essential counts. Having three supermarkets within reach scores the same as having one.
• The walking speed is the same everywhere. Hills, waits at crossings and mobility needs are not taken into account.
• 23 of about 1,400 amenities, mostly bus stops, are too far from any mapped path to be matched to the network, so they do not count towards any score.
• Only locations inside Hamilton can be analysed.

About

WalkReach is a COMPX576 research project for the Master of Information Technology at the University of Waikato, and is still under active development. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License.