Page 78 - JCAU-7-1

Journal of Chinese

Architecture and Urbanism

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Development of a machine-simulated human

scoring model for assessing child-friendly street
environments: A case study of Sham Shui Po,

Hong Kong SAR, China

Xinyu Liu † , Pengyu Lu * , and Jeroen van Ameijde*
†
School of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Chinese Cities of Tomorrow: Computing and Prototyping
Intelligent Forms of Future Urbanism)

†These authors contributed equally Abstract
to this work.
*Corresponding authors: With a growing interest in liveable cities, scholars and urban planners are increasingly
Pengyu Lu studying the characteristics of child-friendly cities, including the ability to walk
(periispengyu@link.cuhk.edu.hk); and move freely in public spaces. While machine learning techniques and street
Jeroen van Ameijde
(jeroen.vanameijde@cuhk.edu.hk) view imagery analysis have enabled the systematic analysis of streets, they have
not yet been applied to assess street environments from a child’s perspective. This
Citation: Liu, X., Lu, P., & van
Ameijde, J. (2025). Development study explores the use of deep learning models to address this gap by developing
of a machine-simulated human a machine-simulated human scoring model to assess health and safety indicators
scoring model for assessing child- in urban streets. Using a high-density, old urban district in Hong Kong SAR, China,
friendly street environments: A case
study of Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong as a case, the study used semantic segmentation to analyze street environmental
SAR, China. Journal of Chinese features and extract elements related to safety, such as greenery, vehicles, and fences.
Architecture and Urbanism, 7(1): Subsequently, the model generated safety ratings, which were compared with
3578.
https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.3578 scores provided by volunteer caregivers. The results indicate that natural elements
and fences enhance safety, whereas an excess of buildings diminishes it. In contrast
Received: May 6, 2024 to European cities, where high visibility and larger sky proportions are considered
1st revised: July 8, 2024 beneficial for health, these factors were less relevant in the high-density, tropical
2nd revised: July 21, 2024 context of Hong Kong. This analysis highlights the robustness and efficiency of the
model, which can assist researchers in other cities in collecting empirical user rating
Accepted: July 30, 2024 data and informing strategies for more child-friendly urban planning.
Published online: November 18,
2024
Keywords: Child-friendly cities; Street perception; Street view imagery segmentation;
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s).
This is an open-access article Machine-simulated human scoring model
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution-
Non-Commercial 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits all
non-commercial use, distribution, 1. Introduction
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is As contemporary cities continue to expand in size and complexity, their internal
properly cited. reorganization often leads to inequalities in neighborhood characteristics, with varying
Publisher’s Note: AccScience physical attributes and differing economic and social prospects for communities
Publishing remains neutral with (Salesses et al., 2013). Children, comprising nearly 30 percent of the world’s population
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional (UNICEF, 2023), experience a range of impacts from their environments. The child-
affiliations. friendliness of streets is an important factor in promoting their physical health and

Volume 7 Issue 1 (2025) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.3578