Transportation and recreation: a case study of visitors driving for pleasure at Acadia National Park

Automobiles and roads are as much of a way of experiencing national parks as they are a means of conveyance. This study examines experiential aspects of transportation on Acadia National Park’s primary scenic road – Ocean Drive. Interviews with vehicle-based road users were conducted to identify indicators to measure and manage experiential quality on Ocean Drive. Also, a survey was conducted to make comparisons with important variables identified on “transportation-only” urban roads. Results suggest that (1) Ocean Drive is important to park visitors’ experience; (2) experiential indicators for Ocean Drive include vehicle crowding, scenery, and travel freedom/convenience; and (3) experiential aspects of transportation on scenic roads in parks may differ substantially from urban roads. Study findings suggest a need to deliberately and thoughtfully plan and manage for quality recreational experiences on roads in national parks and related areas.     

Hierarchical system of road networks with inward, outward, and through traffic

This paper formulates a continuous model of a grid road network for determining the optimal hierarchical system of road networks. The hierarchical system is represented as the proportions of area taken up by roads at each level of the hierarchy. The objective is to derive the optimal ratio of road areas that minimizes the total travel time. The model explicitly incorporates inward, outward, and through traffic as well as inner traffic to examine how traffic composition affects the optimal ratio of road areas. The result reveals that the optimal ratio of major arterial roads increases with inward, outward and through traffic.     

The factors in residents' mobility in rural towns of China: Car ownership,road infrastructure and public transport services

The improvement of rural people's mobility in developing countries has informed many policies. Still, debates remain on which policies are efficient, for instance, building more roads, providing public transport or promoting car ownership. The empirical evidence for these debates at the national level remains scarce. As a result, this paper aims to provide fresh evidence for discussions by examining residents' mobility in China using nationwide survey data with 12,524 respondents from 119 rural towns. The results of the analysis show car ownership is the most significant factor influencing rural people's mobility than other factors. Higher car ownership relates to a higher travel frequency to counties or cities. Other kinds of transport vehicles (i.e. electric cars, motorcycles and electric bikes) also have positive but relatively weaker impacts on rural mobility. For public transport, it is more accessible to access bus stops, which encourages travel to higher-order centres rather than increasing the frequency of county bus services. The accessibility of high-quality road systems tends to have a negative influence and has combined effects with levels of local services. People from towns with insufficient local services and poor access to highways travel the most frequently to higher-order centres. This study highlights the critical role of road investments and car ownership enhancement policies in improving mobility. Moreover, this study also underscores the supplemental role of public transport services given the current low car ownership rates in rural towns of China and the global consensus on sustainable green transport development. It highlights the importance of engaging eco-friendly and locally adaptive transport alternatives, such as electric cars and electric bikes. It also calls for a rational distribution of bus stops and more flexible, convenient, and physically accessible public transport and carshare modes in rural China.     

The spatial characteristics and influencing factors of modal accessibility gaps: A case study for Guangzhou,China

This paper presents an analysis of the spatial characteristic of the modal accessibility gap (MAG) in Guangzhou based on travel times for public transport and cars to public centers calculated by the Travel O-D point Intelligent Query System (TIQS). Four spatial regression models are used to investigate the effect on the MAG of six factors of the built environment (distance to city public centers, residential density, landuse mix, bus stop density, metro station density and road network density). The results show that travel time for a given origin to destination (OD) trip is likely to be larger by public transport than by car, especially for a trip of longer travel time. The MAG values of all the communities are larger than 0, indicating that when compared with public transport, travelling by car takes less travel time for individuals. Residential density, land-use mix, bus stop density and metro rail station density have significant negative direct impacts and indirect impacts (spatial spillover effects) on MAG, which indicates that appropriate increase in community residential density, providing diversified service facilities within a community, and improving public transport supply are beneficial to promote modal shift. Specifically, the role of metro rail is greater than that of buses. However, the road network density has significant direct positive impacts on MAG, and its spillover effect is also significantly positive, which indicates that building more roads is not an effective way to narrow the accessibility gap between public transport and cars but may facilitate more car travel instead.     

Effects of parking and cordon charge policies on tourist's modal shift in central business district of Mashhad city,Iran

The second largest holy city of the world, Mashhad, attracts high volumes of tourists and pilgrims every year. Most visitors travel by private car and are a source of considerable funds for the local economy. Among road users, tourists as one of the major traveller categories in Mashhad city behave differently due to the particular trip purpose. The aim of this research is to model tourist's shifting modes of travel behaviour when policy measures, such as the parking and cordon fares, are implemented. The tourists’ preferences were examined using binary logit analysis when different options of travel cost and time scenarios were provided. Results indicate that travel time, parking cost, cordon cost, education level and vehicle price influence tourist's modal choice. In addition, the finding shows that congestion pricing will be more effective than a parking pricing strategy in encouraging switching of modes.     

Modeling AADT on local functionally classified roads using land use,road density,and nearest nonlocal road data

The focus of this research is to model the influence of road, socioeconomic, and land-use characteristics on local road annual average daily traffic (AADT) and assess the model's predictability in non-covered location AADT estimation. Traditional ordinary least square (OLS) regression and geographically weighted regression (GWR) methods were explored to estimate AADT on local roads. Ten spatially distributed counties were considered for county-level analysis and modeling. The results indicate that road density, AADT at the nearest nonlocal road, and land use variables have a significant influence on local road AADT. The GWR model is found to be better at estimating the AADT than the OLS regression model. The developed county-level models were used for estimating AADT at non-covered locations in each county. The methodology, findings, and the AADT estimates at non-covered locations can be used to plan, design, build, and maintain the local roads in addition to meeting reporting requirements. The prediction error is found to be higher at urban areas and in counties with a smaller number of local road traffic count stations. Recommendations are made to account for influencing factors and enhance the local road count-based AADT sampling methodology.     

Travel,roads, risks and volunteers

International volunteers often travel to destinations (low- and middle-income countries) that carry a greater chance of being involved in a road-related injury and a possible fatality. Within this cultural exchange, tourists move from safe roads and cars to those that are potentially unsafe. Is this all part of the adventure of volunteering or should the tourist industry take some responsibility? This paper highlights the intersection between tourism and road injury and fatality risks (as pedestrians or in vehicles) with special attention to the longer term volunteer traveller. Social science theory underpins some of the discussions around risk and travel. A brief consideration of the international road traffic death and injury crisis and the emergence of the recognition that this impacts upon tourist safety is explored as backdrop to discussions. Tourism relies upon the ability for people to travel in and around the countries they travel to, often taking on the local travel arrangements prevalent in their destination. These local travel arrangements enable leisure tourists to explore their destination and volunteer travellers to live and work as locals. Is it time to consider and further the research on road risks as a growing feature of tourism?     

A method for the estimation of greenhouse gas emissions based on road geometric design and its application to South Korea

South Korea has the tenth highest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide, of which 16% originates from the road sector. Existing estimation methods of road GHG emissions have various limitations, such as low accuracy or the ability to only estimate GHG emissions within a limited area. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a methodology to estimate GHG emissions while considering various geometric designs of roads, including both vertical and horizontal alignment. The developed method is more objective and reliable than existing methodologies that consider only vertical alignment. First, Lamm's theory on travel speed profiles was applied to predict GHG emissions. Then, this study attempted to overcome the limited spatial estimation capacity of existing methods by considering upstream and downstream geometric design parameters simultaneously. Second, this study used the GHG operation mode extracted from the MOtor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES), a modeling system that estimates emissions for mobile sources at the national, county, and project levels for criteria air pollutants, GHGs, and air toxicity. The operation mode includes vehicle type, fuel, and other factors, and is designed to estimate GHG emissions at 1-s intervals. Based on the results of the analysis, the effectiveness of the new method was compared to existing methods using an economic analysis (e.g., cost–benefits from the reduced emissions). This study presents a method for performing sensitive estimations of GHG emissions according to the geometric design of roads, which can be used to collect more accurate data on GHG emissions.     

春培在传说中绵延的古代马帮村

春培村位于西藏亚东县，距县政府所在地下司马镇仅两公里，这座古老的小村庄依山而建，东依奔腾汹涌的亚东河、南与下亚东乡切玛村毗邻、北接下司马镇，自古以来就是中印茶马古道上的一座重要的马帮村落，延续着许许多多传奇的故事。     

Detecting urban road network accessibility problems using taxi GPS data

Urban population growth and economic development have led to the creation of new communities, jobs and services at places where the existing road network might not cover or efficiently handle traffic. This generates isolated pockets of areas which are difficult to reach through the transport system. To address this accessibility problem, we have developed a novel approach to systematically examine the current urban land use and road network conditions as well as to identify poorly connected regions, using GPS data collected from taxis. This method is composed of four major steps. First, city-wide passenger travel demand patterns and travel times are modeled based on GPS trajectories. Upon this model, high density residential regions are then identified, and measures to assess accessibility of each of these places are developed. Next, the regions with the lowest level of accessibility among all the residential areas are detected, and finally the detected regions are further examined and specific transport situations are analyzed.By applying the proposed method to the Chinese city of Harbin, we have identified 20 regions that have the lowest level of accessibility by car among all the identified residential areas. A serious reachability problem to petrol stations has also been discovered, in which drivers from 92.6% of the residential areas have to travel longer than 30 min to refill their cars. Furthermore, the comparison against a baseline model reveals the capacity of the derived measures in accounting for the actual travel routes under divergent traffic conditions. The experimental results demonstrate the potential and effectiveness of the proposed method in detecting car-based accessibility problems, contributing towards the development of urban road networks into a system that has better reachability and more reduced inequity.     

Equity in new active travel infrastructure: A spatial analysis of London's new Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

In this article we examine equity in new active travel infrastructure in London, UK. We focus on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) introduced during Covid-19. These area-based schemes mainly involve ‘modal filters’ that restrict through motor traffic from residential streets within a neighbourhood. Such approaches to traffic management are traditional in the Netherlands, but are relatively novel in London and other global cities such as Barcelona. LTNs are often controversial, with one criticism being that they are implemented in affluent areas and hence benefit richer residents.London represents an excellent opportunity to investigate whether these rapidly introduced schemes have so far been equitably distributed. We focused on LTNs introduced between March and September 2020 and still present at the end of October 2020. Having generated datasets representing these new LTN locations and their boundary roads, we matched these to Output Areas (OAs, administrative areas containing around 300 residents). We then examined the extent to which LTN implementation was associated with age, ethnicity, disability, employment and car ownership (using Census 2011 data) and small-area deprivation (using the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2019).We estimated that 3.7% of all Londoners live inside a new LTN, and 8.9% live within 500 m walking distance of a new modal filter. Across London as a whole, people in the most deprived quarter of OAs were 2.5 times more likely to live in a new LTN, compared to Londoners in the least deprived quarter. While overall Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people were slightly more likely than White Londoners to live in a new LTN, this varied by ethnic group. Specifically, Black Londoners were somewhat more likely, and Asian Londoners somewhat less likely than White people to live in a new LTN. Car-free households were more likely to live in a new LTN.We also examined equity within London's districts, which lead on implementation of LTNs. In the median district, people in more deprived areas were more likely to live in an LTN than people in less deprived areas, suggesting that, on average, individual districts have prioritised their more deprived areas. However, in the median district, BAME residents were slightly less likely to live in an LTN than White residents. Across districts implementing LTNs there was wide variation, with some much more or less equitable than others. A third of districts implemented no LTNs at all. Finally, at the micro level, residents living in LTNs were demographically similar to neighbours living in OAs that touched an LTN boundary road.We conclude that LTN implementation has been broadly equitable at the city and micro levels, but the picture is more mixed at the district level, despite districts being encouraged to consider deprivation when planning LTN locations. Equity metrics should be used in policy and research to monitor and improve the distribution of active travel interventions.     

Talking,walking, riding and driving: The mobilities of older adults

Through interviews with residents of an urban retirement community and users of a senior centre in an inner city neighbourhood this research uses the new mobilities paradigm to examine the relationships that exist between movement, non-movement, communicative travel and place-bound and place-creating social relations for older individuals. Our results show that these relationships can be conceptualized as forming non-linear multi-directional, locally-contingent mobility ‘systems’. Two such systems were identified: the first centred on the communal area within the retirement community and the second focused on the senior centre. The types of non-movement, movement and communicative travel that form each of these mobility chains, the number and variety of spaces connected and consequently the form and nature of the social relations created exhibit both similarities and differences. The mobility systems created by residents of the retirement community connect and flow through more spaces, involve a greater variety of movement and non-movement and are more varied than the senior centre users’ mobility chains. For both populations the place-bound and place-creating social relations that result from and generate movement, non-movement and communicative travel occur as individuals carry out daily errands and routines. For the users of the senior centre, interaction/participation by definition is the result of routine and repeated planned presence at the senior centre. Once at the centre, contact and participation predominately result from engaging in pre-arranged organised activities. For retirement community residents interaction occurs as a result of within-community movement, extensive travel outside the community and periods spent at home alone.     

Access to the city: Mobility patterns,transport and accessibility in peripheral settlements of Dar es Salaam

This paper is concerned with access to the city for urban residents living in the periphery of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The paper presents an analysis of the mobility practices of residents and investigates the mobility constraints they experience in relation to the limited accessibility provided by the urban transport system. The paper draws upon qualitative interviews with residents in the periphery as well as recently collected travel speed data and offers a unique combination of testimony with GIS-based modelling of overall accessibility. A central finding is the overall importance of regular mobility and access to the city for residents in the periphery. Regular mobility is an ingrained part of residents' livelihood strategies. The majority of households rely on one or more members regularly travelling to central parts of the city in relation to their livelihood activities. The analysis reveals a widespread, near-to-universal, dependence on motorized transportation, with the vast majority depending on public transport. Raster-based modelling of overall accessibility provides an indication of the very high travel times endured by residents in the periphery. The analysis identifies and distinguishes between three overall mode types: 1) Private car, 2) public transport and 3) motorcycle/car combined with public transport. While private cars appear marginally faster, differences in travel times are actually limited. This suggests that travel times are less influenced by mode of transport than by road and traffic conditions and highlights how accessibility problems of peripheral settlements are not easily understood separately from the general dysfunctions of the overall mobility system of city.     

Incorporating spatial equity into interurban road network design

Methods for the road network design problem, typically, are based on optimization of the network efficiency measures (e.g. network-wide travel time) under a predefined budget. In these approaches, equity issues are not taken into account and, consequently, most of the road improvements are planned next to large cities. Thus, disparities between large and small cities increase, which does not conform to sustainable development objectives. In this paper, to overcome concerns associated with traditional methods, equity is incorporated into the interurban road network design problem. To this end, accessibility concepts are employed. However, unlike previous studies, instead of maximizing the total accessibility, a new definition is proposed for inaccessibility, and total inaccessibility is minimized throughout the network. Using this new definition not only is more compatible with the equity issue, but also helps to eliminate the nonlinearity of the problem. Average travel time to neighboring opportunities is utilized to propose this definition for inaccessibility, which captures the reality more effectively. With the aim of this definition, equity is incorporated into the road network design problem implicitly. This is another improvement over previous methods, where a new term in the objective function or a new constraint is added to include the equity. The proposed model is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem, where the objective is to minimize the aggregate inaccessibility over all the population centers in the network. To illustrate the application of the model, the Northwest region of the United States is used as the case study. The respective exact solution of the example is found using a commercial solver (CPLEX). This new solution is also compared with the solutions from the traditional methods.     

Changes in accessibility in the Meseta Purépecha region of Michoacán, Mexico: 1940–2000

This paper examines changes in town accessibility on the Meseta Purépecha of Michoacán, Mexico before and after road construction beginning in the 1940s. In the mid-20th century researchers noted the presence of an important mountain–lake trade connection, which by 2000 had been significantly diminished. Between 1940 and 2000 there was an increase in accessibility of the area east of Lake Pátzcuaro, while there were more modest increases seen in the western section of the meseta. Road improvements and realignments have led to substantial changes in the theoretical network associations among the towns, and while towns in the region have become better connected externally, improvements in accessibility among towns within the region were unevenly distributed.     

Measuring individuals' travel behaviour by use of a GPS-based smartphone application in Dar es Salaam,Tanzania

A range of mega-cities in the Global South have started to invest in Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems, as a complement or replacement for informal paratransit services, in an effort to improve the mobility and accessibility in the city. Yet, few studies have tried to analyse the impact of such systems on the mobility patterns of cities' residents, in part because traditional travel diary surveys are often too expensive to conduct and unsuitable to capture spatial mobility patterns in fast growing cities with a high level of informality in spatial development. In this study, we analyse the applicability of a new method of data collection, i.e. a GPS-based smartphone application, to capture individuals travel behaviour in fast growing mega-cities in the Global South. Our case study is the city of Dar es Salaam (DES) in Tanzania, where the first BRT line is currently being implemented. In our study, the GPS-based app was used by individuals in DES to record distances, departure times and destinations of their trips. Socio-demographic data of respondents were recorded in short questionnaires. The spatial distribution of the trip patterns shows the mobility demand in both high and less connected areas. The results reveal a variation in departure times, travel destinations and trip distances that are one the one hand spatially limited within neighbourhoods and away from the planned BRT, and on the other hand along major roads connecting to the Central Business District (CBD). The short average distances of the trips (<3 km) reveal the characteristics of paratransit modes. The GPS-based smartphone application provides an opportunity to policy makers to engage deeply with the spatial reality of local communities, as a basis for transport investments and policy improvements as steps towards an integrated public transport system.     

Developing advanced route choice models for heavy goods vehicles using GPS data

This paper presents a novel application in route choice modelling using Global Positioning System (GPS) data, focussing on heavy goods vehicles which typically make longer journeys with decisions potentially underpinned by different priorities from those used by car drivers. The scope of the study is larger than many previous ones, using the entire road network of England. Making use of the error components model put forward for route choice by Frejinger and Bierlaire (2007), the work reveals low elasticities in response to changes in travel time, reflecting the limited opportunity for avoiding specific roads on long distance journeys by heavy goods vehicles.     

Travel and activity time allocation: An empirical comparison between eight cities in Europe

A study of daily time allocation to travel and out-of-home activity is conducted across eight European cities over three countries: France (Lyon, Grenoble, Strasbourg and Rennes), Switzerland (Geneva, Bern and Zurich) and Belgium (Brussels), based on individual travel survey data collected between 1997 and 2006. The effects of socio-demographic, spatial context, transport availability and city-specific variables are investigated thanks to the Cox proportional hazard model. The results indicate that socio-demographic characteristics and city (or country) specific effect play a major role while residential density and proximity to high level road or public transport networks have a very limited impact on time budgets for travel and out-of-home activities.