Premium City Hiking Trails

Criteria for the evaluation of Premium City Hiking Trails

The evaluation of a City Hiking Trail is based on an extensive catalogue of criteria, which are a modification of the criteria for the evaluation of a Premium Hiking Trail. The possible ways of evaluating the characteristics of individual criteria are adapted to the specific types of experience of the urban area.

The core criteria are those evaluation aspects that must be at least achieved as decision thresholds for the certification of a city hiking trail as a Premium City Hiking Trail.

Core criteria for Premium City Hiking Trails

• Circular or linear hiking trails
• with a length of at least 6 kilometers
• trail design with a balanced relationship between urban and nature experiences
• at least 1/3 of the total trail length passes through contiguous areas of urban and tourist interest
• at least 1/3 of the total trail length leads through urban or peri-urban green areas
• at least 50% of the total trail length is on near-natural paths or paths with finely crushed rock
• hard surfaces (natural stone pavement and composite surfaces) as trail surface are only acceptable up to max. 50% of the trail and up to max. 6 kilometers of the total trail length. The limit for asphalt/concrete is 40%.
• user-friendly markings are required along the entire trail length, also within the city
• starting and ending points at a maximum distance of 500 meters from an actively operated public transportation stop at prominent urban starting points

Criteria

Criteria with a positive influence on the quality of experience of a city hiking trail:

• natural (earthy, soft) trail surface
• narrow trail width, possibly with single track character
• experience aspects resulting from diverse forest- and field-scapes, the nearby landscape relief, views, the effect of water and geological phenomena as well as fauna and flora
• a cohesive, touristically interesting, urban townscape
• individual historical buildings, monuments
• offers of signposting, marking, orientation and information for tourists
• forms of furnishing (benches, steps, etc.) and gastronomic services

Criteria with a negative influence on the quality of experience of a city hiking trail:

• trail sections with asphalt/concrete
• extremely wide, long linear route without an interesting urban background
• alongside traffic routes, competing use with other road users, and restrictions in road safety
• impairment of the experience of forest-, field-, and cityscape through destruction, damage, optical disorder, industrialization