Criteria for Establishing Priorities in Sidewalk Maintenance When Using Multi-Criteria Analysis in Order to Achieve Inclusive Mobility

To create an inclusive city, it is essential to have accessible pedestrian infrastructure. The accessibility of pedestrian infrastructure is ensured through the proper maintenance of sidewalks. When resources are limited, it is necessary to prioritize sidewalks by identifying those in the most critical condition, and this is often achieved through multi-criteria analyses. This paper proposed an analysis of the criteria to be considered, which include not only pavement distresses but also the importance of the sidewalk in connecting various parts of the city and ensuring accessibility to significant places for all, including vulnerable users. Methodologies for evaluating a sidewalk in relation to these criteria were proposed and an application of these methods to a simple case study in Genoa was presented. In this context, the evaluation of the criteria weights was performed using subjective and objective methods. The weights calculated with the two methods generated the same priorities. All the experts interviewed agreed with the proposed set of criteria and two experts suggested considering a new criterion relating to the level of danger of the context in which a pavement is located.