Objective To examine the association of awareness on public transport stop settings with physical activity (PA) among adults in urban Nanjing city, Jiangsu province and to provide evidences for PA promotion.

Methods We recruited 1 551 urban residents aged 35 – 74 years using stratified multistage random cluster sampling in 8 communities in urban Nanjing and conducted a questionnaire survey between March and July, 2017. Mixed effect model was adopted to assess the association between awareness on public transport stop settings and PA.

Results Of all the participants, 1 313 (84.7%) and 238 (15.3%) reported sufficient and insufficient PA; 1 486 (95.8%) and 65 (4.2%) reported the awareness and the unawareness on public transport stop settings near their neighborhoods. The result of mixed-effect model analysis indicated that the participants being aware of public transport stop settings near their neighborhoods were 3.58 (95% confidence interval: 1.88 – 6.83) times more likely to report sufficient PA compared to those being not aware of public transport stop settings near their neighborhoods after adjusting potential confounders including gender, age, educational level, occupation, body mass index, and clustering effects at neighborhood; further stratified analysis revealed that the male, female, 35 – 49 years old, and 65 – 74 years old participants being aware of public transport stop settings near their neighborhoods were 2.73, 3.47, 5.55, and 5.59 times more likely to report sufficient PA than their counterparts being not aware of public transport stop settings near their neighborhoods after adjusting potential confounders.

Conclusion The awareness on public transport stop settings is positively associated with self-reported physical activity among urban adult residents in Nanjing. The result is of a great public health implication for community-level promotion of PA-friendly environment development in China.