Journal of Urban Mobility最新文献

Quantification of traffic dynamics is a valuable tool for city planning and management. Metrics such as the vehicle average speed, travel time, delays, and count of stops, can be used to characterize mobility and traffic congestion in an area. However, effective study of mobility data is often hindered by the difficulty of gathering mobility data in a practical, inexpensive, and prompt way.

In this work, we explore the use of city buses as mobility probes, using the existing smart city infrastructure deployed in Aveiro, Portugal. We propose a method for traffic congestion detection considering the low vehicle speed, low traffic flow and road occupancy close to its capacity. Three degrees of congestion are identified using the k-means approach; DBSCAN is used to characterize the typical level of congestion in a road. Using four-weeks of mobility data, it was possible to assess the congestion along the day and for the different days of the week; some road segments proved to be consistently prone to congestion. We also studied parameters of driving safety, considering speed and acceleration.

In this work, we show that knowledge discovery can be applied to mobility data being collected by tracking buses, exploring data that is often collected for other purposes also to characterize traffic congestion. These methods can inform decision makers and are easily ported to other cities.

The creation and design of intervention for street experimentation is in itself a key challenge in sustainable urban mobility to effectively encourage a modal shift from high car dependence to more active, non-polluting modes of transport. Understanding the needs of the community, including the diverse stakeholders at play, is crucial in implementing successful street experiments that can ultimately manifest into more permanent and systemic change. This study aims to address a current gap between stakeholders and the community in the street experimentation process within the context of the principal urban area of Malta, a car-dependent Euro-Mediterranean island. By collecting initial input from the community and several key stakeholders, a virtual platform to engage the local community is created; a virtual urban living lab (VULL). The VULL is tested in a workshop setting as a method for the collection and visualisation of data in the process of street experimentation. The VULL offers an interactive space for participants to identify barriers that discourage walking and explore and evaluate ideas of street experimentation for the local urban environment. A discussion of preliminary findings from the community's direct input and feedback sheds light on the benefits and challenges of using virtual platforms for stakeholder and community participation in the street experimentation process. The paper concludes by proposing VULLs as a valuable tool for city leaders, urban planners and designers to effectively engage with stakeholders and test new solutions to the complex and pressing issues of urban mobility and public space.

Vehicle emissions have been identified as a cause of air pollution and one of the major reasons why air quality in many large German cities such as Berlin, Bonn, Hamburg, Cologne or Munich does not meet EU-wide limits. As a result, in the recent past, judicial driving bans on diesel vehicles have been imposed in many places since those vehicles emit critical pollutant groups. For the increasing urban population, the challenge is whether and how a change of the modal split in favor of the more environmentally and climate-friendly public transport can be achieved.

This paper presents the case of the Federal City of Bonn, one of five model cities sponsored by the German federal government that are testing measures to reduce traffic-related pollutant emissions by expanding the range of public transport services on offer. We present the results of a quantitative survey (N = 14,296) performed in the Bonn/Rhein-Sieg area and the neighboring municipalities as well as the ensuing logistic regressions confirming that a change in individual mobility behavior in favor of public transport is possible through expanding services. Our results show that individual traffic could be reduced, especially on the city's main traffic axes. To sustainably improve air quality, such services must be made permanently available.

Feeling safe is a major issue for cyclists, and some potential cyclists are still deterred from using the bicycle because they feel too unsafe. Assessing the subjective safety of existing cycling infrastructures and locations can be done by questionnaires that show pictures of infrastructures and ask participants for their safety ratings. However, future cycling infrastructures should also be evaluated as safe even before they are implemented. Therefore, it is desirable to have a method that is able to predict safety from infrastructural information. This study aims to propose two different ways for such a method and to test both ways in a use case. We first developed two scores, namely the Repertory Grid (RG) Score and the FixMyBerlin (FMB) Score, which predict subjective safety from objective environmental information but use different data bases and different methodologies. In a second step, we validated these scores by comparing them to questionnaire ratings that evaluated cyclists’ subjective safety at 20 locations in the city of Braunschweig, Germany. Finally, we compared the two scores as well as the questionnaire ratings with objective safety measures, namely crash statistics, at the respective locations. The results show that the RG Score has a moderate agreement and the FMB Score has a fair agreement with the questionnaire ratings. All methods agree on the overall safety evaluation of various cycling facilities. However, the RG Score showed less variance in the safety ratings, whereas the FMB Score rated most locations more unsafe than the participants in the questionnaire. Interestingly, neither the scores nor the questionnaire ratings could sufficiently deduce the occurrence of a crash at one of the locations. The findings strengthen the importance of subjective safety as a construct independent of objective safety. Furthermore, they provide insights into aspects of subjective safety that can easily be measured by objective scores, and into aspects that are important for cyclists but were not yet covered by the scores. This study, therefore, provides a basis for future considerations and future evaluation methods to assess the subjective safety of cyclists.

Building on the literature concerning gender-responsive mobility, this paper aims to explore how street experiments can be used to promote gendered mobilities and create streetscapes in order to prioritise the needs of women in the improvement of access to public transport that grants them access to the many facets of urban life. It argues that by creating more inclusive and accessible streets through participatory planning and design processes, women will have greater opportunities to participate in and benefit from public transport. To that end, a street experiment project, TOPUK, was used as a case study focusing on improving women's access to public transport in Maltepe, Istanbul. The methodology consists of the critical assessment of various participation methods and a detailed narrative of the project process. Accessibility, mobility, and safety were found to be the most important women-centric public transportation issues addressed through participatory pop-up design solutions at the street level, most of which were implemented despite bureaucratic obstacles. The paper concludes with a discussion of the lessons learned from the TOPUK project and how these lessons can be applied to future street experiments to create more gender-responsive and inclusive living environments.

This paper argues that the right to access public spaces and streets is impacted not only because of automobility but also by socio-spatial factors of the urban environment. This paper presents insights towards a holistic understanding for street experiments (with a focus on stationary and slow travel modes) by highlighting the factors that impact the conditions of mobility and access through the lens of gender. By adopting a combination of new technologies, such as GPS, along with mobile methods, like ethnography, this research centres around the everyday travel experiences of urban marginalized women (UMW) from peri‑urban areas of New Delhi who contest their right to access public spaces on a day-to-day basis. This study examines the socio-spatial environment comprising the daily mobilities of UMW to reveal the conditions of mobility and access to public spaces. The findings highlight that the issues faced by these women while travelling, mainly guided by aspects of gender, act as barriers to their mobility and access to public spaces (streets) in urban informal conditions. The study also reveals elements of urban informality (socio-spatial elements) enhance as well as negatively on the daily mobilities of UMW. These socio-spatial factors were found to be interconnected to one another and thus cannot be implemented as individual or isolated factors. The results of the study support the proposal of a more inclusive and accessible public space.

Over the course of history there have been several and significant changes in the methods and technologies used to move people and things. Innovations typically follow the distributive and social needs of their time but in some cases they drive or at least contribute to the social and economic evolution of human communities. The paper is based on the hypothesis that transport system innovations occur with different speeds and have impacts of different magnitude in different historical moments. Changes can thus be classified as revolutions or as evolutions depending on weather they (contribute to) change societal, economic and/or territorial systems in a relatively short time period or not. In this paper, analysing the history of humanity, six transport revolutions and several evolutions following over time have been identified, extending and re-defining the ideas of Gilbert and Pearl (2010). We suggest that transportation systems are undergoing a seventh revolutionary phase due to the combined effects of three main drivers. These are innovations in energy sources and their transmission, developments of connected and autonomous vehicles for all transportation modes, and new smart mobility services. As for past revolutions it's impossible anticipate the extent of change it will bring about, both in the transportation market and in society at large. According to the “law of unintended consequences” of previous revolutions, the combined effects of the three drivers will likely further amplify the scope of possible changes. These changes can have positive, neutral or negative effects on short to medium term for environmental, social and economic sustainability of freights and passengers transportation. The paper starts with a synthetic description of previous transport revolutions, as proposed by the Authors. The main elements of the seventh transport revolution are then discussed together with some possible interactions among them. Finally the paper analyses some opportunities and risks connected to the ongoing innovation with respect to environmental, social ed economic sustainability. The perception of the current time as a revolutionary phase should change the approach of researchers and practitioners in the wide field of transportation system analysis with respect to the last evolutionary decades. Future research, in addition to sector specific evolutions, should focus on the actual holistic deployment of the seventh revolution trying to continuously update its combined effects and anticipate as much as possible its trajectory in order to reduce undesirable ones while boasting desirable ones. Future transport policies, especially in urban areas, will have to take into account the opportunities and risks deriving from the ongoing transport revolution as well as the resulting level of uncertainty.

Recognised as an important dimension of quality of life, accessibility has gained increasing attention from research and planning practice in the last decades. Rising concern with global warming and the dehumanization of cities has spotlighted the proximity-centred dimension of accessibility, which for decades has been mostly undervalued. In both research and practice, we witness a rise in references to proximity-centred accessibility, however, using a variety of different terms, with somewhat nuanced meanings or underlying concerns. Proximity-centred accessibility concepts are still in flux, inhibiting the establishment of a comprehensive understanding for the development of a cohesive research field and of effective public policies.

This paper provides a first contribution to the development of a conceptual framework for proximity-centred accessibility, through a co-development process involving both research and practice. For this we used a mixed methods approach incorporating bibliographic research, surveys, and a focus group, involving both experts in the research field and a sample of planning practitioners from Portugal and Germany.

Our research revealed over a dozen different proximity-centred accessibility terms currently in use in the scientific research field, of which, local accessibility and neighbourhood accessibility are the most commonly used. A difference in favoured terminology was identified between research and practice as well as different national contexts, requiring further explorations. While Proximity thresholds have been defined using a variety of physical distances or travel times, our survey revealed a nearly unanimous consensus around a threshold of 1600 m (roughly 20 min walking). Mixed evidence was found with regard to activities relevant at proximity. Regardless, playgrounds, green spaces, food shopping and elementary education showed particular relevance.

Building on the empirical evidence collected, we strike out a first conceptual framework for proximity-centred accessibility. Building on the general definition for accessibility, we include a maximum distance threshold of 1600 m to consider accessibility as proximity-centred. The proposed framework encourages multiple distances (up to 1600 m), transport modes, and activities (although the relevance of activities seems to be clearly dependent of distance and local context). The importance of clearly specifying the exact distances, transport mode(s) and activities for each application of the framework is stressed.

Children's mobility and the opportunity to get around the city on their own has decreased and is today limited to a large extent by unsafe traffic situations. Due to their limited independent mobility, children are excluded from the urban space and its facilities. Independent mobility can be related to several dimensions of children's social, physical, mental and cognitive wellbeing. The purpose of this study is to investigate if and in what way autonomous buses can contribute to children's independent mobility and, using children's experiences, provide insights into this before the introduction of autonomous buses in cities and public transport systems. To do so, the two research questions "How can autonomous buses in the transport system contribute to children's independent mobility?" and "What prerequisites are necessary for autonomous buses to contribute to children's independent mobility?" are answered. The survey is based on a case of introduction of autonomous buses in urban environments. Three focus groups with students in a primary school were conducted with the aim of gaining the participants' experiences. The results indicate that the introduction of autonomous buses in an urban area can contribute to children's independent mobility in several ways and that the buses have certain characteristics that enable them to be adapted to children's conditions. The low speed of the shuttles, which is often seen as an obstacle when it comes to time efficiency, has a positive effect on perceived safety in this case. The mobility solution is also child-friendly in that it is accessible in terms of trip planning and payment. However, it is important to consider the risk that the bus might replace active transportation modes, like cycling. To avoid this, autonomous shuttles should be integrated in a way that complement, not compete with, active travel.

In recent years, the concept of proximity has gathered significant attention and the best-known model dealing with this concept is Carlos Moreno's 15-minute city, where citizens can easily reach any essential service through a 15 minutes’ walk (or bike ride). This city model presents numerous advantages, including reductions in car traffic and carbon footprint, improvement in citizens' health and safety, enhancement of the economy in the whole city, improvement of accessibility and so on. However, transitioning to a 15-minute city is not a straightforward undertaking and we argue that for this process to succeed it is best to rely on data-driven assessments of its developments. Therefore, in this paper we present the NExt proXimity Index (NEXI), based on open data and capable of measuring the level of local proximity to services by walking, according to the principles of the 15-minute city. The goal of NEXI is to identify which of the different areas of a given territory already follow the 15-minute paradigm and its implementation is made available as an interactive map where the index is computed on a hexagonal grid and thematized according to its value. The NEXI is designed to be glocal: it is based on OpenStreetMap data so it can be replicated everywhere (global), but it is also granular enough to be able to evaluate the proximity at a small scale (local). Moreover, the index is designed to have a scalable computation and is in fact already available for the entirety of Italy. Finally, the NEXI can be combined with additional local data (e.g. population level) to gather additional insights, as was experimented in two use cases carried out in the cities of Ferrara and Bologna, Italy.