Interaction of activity involvement and recreational location selection behavior in Lowland City: A case study of public parks in Saga City, Japan

Public parks provide many benefits to the community as the representatives of green area. The allocation of public places plays an extremely important role in the daily lives of inhabitants especially for recreational use that could enhance the quality of life of residents in the vicinity. To understand park users' behavior is one of the most important prerequisites for assessing the participation in public service from the park users' point of view. The pattern of park utilization on location and activity selection are important elements in behavioral study, while the public parks topograph may also influence the typical user's behavior. Questionnaire survey on park utilization was used to investigate the interaction between activity involvement and recreational location with the use of linear discriminant analysis (LDA) model. The study found that public park users' behavior is influenced not only by social characteristics but also by the recreational activities and their specific location characteristics. We found that about 45 percent of park visitors are local residents living within a radius of 3 km preferred travel to parks near their residential area. This implies that location selection behavior is correlated with travel distance, travel time and travel cost. Visit frequencies and on site expenditures reflect the recreation behavior for different type of activities. The overall information can be usefully applied by decision makers to launch appropriate public policy in consistence with the useful results of this study.