The Online TDM Encyclopedia: mobility management information gateway

This paper describes the Online TDM Encyclopedia, a unique new Internet resource to help transportation professionals identify, evaluate and implement innovative mobility management strategies. It is available free at www.vtpi.org. The Encyclopedia contains detailed information on more than three dozen mobility management strategies, more than one hundred chapters, hundreds of pages of text and thousands of hyperlinks that provide instant access to references and resources. It emphasizes an integrated approach to Transportation Demand Management (TDM) planning, with information on how various strategies can be combined for maximum effectiveness. This article describes the Encyclopedia, its development, and discusses how it can be used by transportation professionals.     

Multiple views of sustainable urban mobility: The case of Brazil

The aim of this work is to identify key factors of a sustainable urban mobility concept in a particular context. A multiple criteria decision analysis method was developed to identify the main variables associated to the concept. Looking at the results obtained in 11 cities of the five Brazilian regions, we conclude that the method is able to capture the different views and approaches discussed in the formulation of the mobility concept. Therefore, it can be used as a starting point for the formulation of public policies and also in the development of tools designed for monitoring the mobility conditions.     

Accessibility by proximity: Addressing the lack of interactive accessibility instruments for active mobility

The rise of concepts such as the 15-minute-city represents the growing importance of accessibility by active mobility. In order to promote accessibility, accessibility instruments are developed that have substantial potential to assist practitioners in decision making processes. Therefore, this research starts with an up-to-date overview on the suitability of accessibility instruments when planning for active mobility. It was found that accessibility instruments were significantly further developed in the last few years and there is a rising number of tools that contain novel features. However, it was identified that there is a clear lack of tools specifically designed for modeling active mobility that are open source, include interactive scenario building, and can easily be transferred to new study areas.Therefore, an interactive accessibility instrument named GOAT (Geo Open Accessibility Tool) was developed, which is open source, transferable, and has an easy-to-use web interface. This instrument has been developed following an iterative software development process in close cooperation with practitioners from three municipalities in the region of Munich, Germany. The practitioners tested the tool independently in numerous workshops in order to provide feedback, which was integrated into the development. Furthermore, the tool was tested and transferred to more than 20 German municipalities, the City of Bogotá (Colombia) and Matosinhos (Portugal). First results show that the collaborative and open development process produced a user-centric solution, which bears the high potential to make planning for active mobility more effective and efficient.     

Perceptually important points of mobility patterns to characterise bike sharing systems: The Dublin case

Since the first Bike Sharing System (BSS) was introduced in Amsterdam (1965), studies about BSSs have constantly increased. BSSs studies are typically focused on user's socio-economic characteristics, bike sharing patterns and purpose of use in the city. This paper increases the knowledge of bike station classification due to users' mobility patterns based on data mining tools. For this purpose stations will be identified by a code based on joining three ratios: the load factor or number of available bikes ratio, the cumulative trips ratio, and the turnover station ratio. The latter is the new ratio proposed in this paper, which measures the effectiveness degree of each station. The higher the rate, the more effective the station is. Data mining tools to work with these three ratios are used in the proposed algorithm. Specifically, the perceptually important points (PIP) process to represent and index each time series of each station, and a rule set to classify the stations, are used. The results could support planning and operations decisions for re-design and management of BSSs in relation to the spatial implications of the stations and the users' mobility patterns, due to the classification reveals imbalances in the distribution of bikes and lead to a better understanding of the system structure. The proposed method is applied to the Dublin Bikes Scheme with good performance results.     

Systematic risk behavior in cyclical industries: The case of shipping

This study explores macroeconomic and industry-level effects on corporate systematic risk (or beta) for the international shipping industry. We document the extent to which stock market betas fluctuate over time in this asset-intensive and cyclical industry. Moreover, we analyze the fundamental determinants of systematic risk. We find evidence for high levels of systematic risk in shipping stocks, which match the fundamental risk characteristics of the industry (such as high financial and operating leverage). Shipping firms exhibit distinct industry-specific beta dynamics compared to firms from benchmark sectors or the average firm in the S&P 500 index. Changes in both economic conditions and industry-specific risk factors explain large proportions of beta variation in the cross-section of firms and over time.     

Urban mobility with a focus on gender: The case of a middle-income Latin American city

This study analyzes gender differences in travel patterns for the Metropolitan Area of Montevideo, Uruguay. By applying multilevel regression models, it provides estimates of the impact of individual and contextual factors on travel behavior. The paper's findings lend support to the household responsibility hypothesis, which claims that women's travel patterns are affected by the type of household in which they live and the consequent responsibilities or roles they assume. Furthermore, gender differences in travel patterns are reinforced across census tracts. The results indicate that policy makers need to consider gender differences when seeking to enhance urban planning decisions.     

Mobility policy through the lens of policy mobility: The post-political case of introducing free transit in Luxembourg

This viewpoint paper addresses the issue of fare-free public transport (FFPT) in the context of policy mobility, the strand of urban studies literature that examines how policy formulations developed in one place tend to ‘travel’ and inform and inspire plans elsewhere as good or best practices. We argue that the promotion of policies may not reflect a serious attempt to solve a sustainability or socio-economic issue. Rather, the institutions in charge have different targets in mind. FFPT in Luxembourg is thus more a reflection of a post-political process where politics are severed from the political.     

Beyond expected regularity of aggregate urban mobility: A case study of ridesourcing service

The regularity of urban mobility is a tacit understanding in public transportation planning. Many studies investigated regularity in the context of individual travel while fewer were found on aggregate mobility. This work proposes a generic measure of regularity to quantify the degree of repetition of a time or spatial data series. In addition, it discusses how the properties of a data series itself may dictate the regularity and adopts parametric bootstrapping to estimate the residual regularity that deviates from realizations of stochastic processes. The proposed measure can examine not only the periodicity of trip generation in locations but also the stationarity of travel flows. The experiments were conducted on a ridesourcing dataset, including more than six million trips in Chengdu, China. Both the temporal and spatial regularities were investigated at distinct time intervals. We discussed how the total travel volume and the peakedness of probability distribution could affect the regularity. It was found that regularity was positively associated with the total volume and the peakedness. We further examined the impact of the built environment on regularity and the effects of spatial and temporal scales. The results show both point-of-interest density and diversity and tourist attractions contribute to regularity. Regularity grows linearly as the spatial and temporal scales increase exponentially. Lastly, different specifications of regularities were compared, and the outcome was generally consistent across different similarity measures including coefficient of determination, Manhattan distance, Euclidean distance, cross-entropy and cosine similarity.     

The role of road safety in a sustainable urban mobility: An econometric assessment of the Spanish NUTS-3 case

There has been a structural change in mobility in major Spanish cities in recent decades, with a switch to the pattern followed in other countries in the area. A shift has taken place from a traditional Mediterranean model to a North American city stereotype, with uncontrolled motorization and major implications for public health. This article specifically analyzes negative road safety-related externalities that result from this process, given that the trend seems to show a steady decline in road safety accidents on urban roads in Spain, with major differences among NUTS-3 provinces. The objective is to evaluate the factors that empirically explain these differences for the 2003–2013 period using a panel data analysis. Results show that a key role is played by urban development variables, such as population density and improvements in health services, with advances linked to more accessible and sustainable urban transportation, such as the Smart City concept. Not only does this article close a gap in the literature, but the findings can also serve as a practical guide for the development and implementation of urban mobility and road safety plans, and reveals the special needs of the most vulnerable groups.     

Monitoring social network formation and information content analysis of transport anomalies: The case of airline crashes

Airliners' industry corresponds to an extremely sensitive and volatile sector, especially subject to information related to flight safety. Possible negative publicity on such issues may result to sudden and abrupt fluctuations of air travel demand, accompanied with phenomena of panic or feelings of generalized insecurity. The proliferation of social media platforms that offer a direct and immediate two-way communication channel contributes to the overall information propagation related to flights security (as exposed in the recent airlines crashes) and can be viewed as a proxy of the social network formation of such paradigms. The current paper aims to offer a framework for quantitatively analyzing social network formation, based on comprehensive network metrics, valuable in cases of commercial airliners accidents. Moreover, the use of data from social media connectivity offers one more extremely valuable piece of information related to the messages that connected users exchange, mention or are exposed to. Such large datasets are quantitatively analyzed here based on methods used in content analysis, exposing valuable information on the interest of the general public (potential airliners users) of anomalies in the airline industry. The analysis is based on data from two real events (airliners’ crashes), which attracted the international public interest and significantly affected air travel demand. Finally, the results are analyzed and presented in detail such as to contribute to the air demand treatment, especially in terms of optimal communication operational management in cases of crises.     

Departure time choice behavior for hurricane evacuation planning: The case of the understudied medically fragile population

Despite the non-trivial number of (non-institutionalized) residents with special needs – referred to as the medically fragile population in this paper – there is virtually no research available to guide the hurricane evacuation planning for this population group. One area is their evacuation time choice behavior that can have tremendous implications for their safety as well as the logistics of the evacuation process. In this paper, we fundamentally advance our understanding of the evacuation timing behavior of this heavily understudied, and potentially vulnerable, population group. Analysis indicates that key differences exist between the medically fragile and non-medically fragile population.     

Small community airport choice behavior analysis: A case study of GTR

The issue of airport selection attracts considerable attention. However, most studies focus on using advanced discrete choice models to analyze airport choice behavior in metropolitan areas with several closely located, competing airports. This paper addresses passengers’ choice behavior in selecting between local small community airports and more distant major commercial airport. It looks at factors affecting air travelers’ airport choice behavior in cities with small community air service. Data relating to the Golden Triangle Regional Airport in Mississippi is used in logistic regressions to identify the key factors that influence air travelers’ airport choices. Ticket price, experience with Golden Triangle Regional Airport and flight schedule were found to be the strongest effects.     

The information content of earnings releases by global airlines

This paper provides a systematic assessment of the usefulness of earnings releases by global airlines. Utilizing a standard event study methodology, it is found that the sample as a whole does not possess significant information content. The information content of earnings is found to be related to the size of the releasing firm but no clear differences are detected for airlines from different accounting clusters. Several possible explanations are offered for the lack of strong earnings information content in the context of global airlines.     

Analysis of active school transportation in hilly urban environments: A case study of Dresden

This paper analyses the way students travel to school and examines the influence of environmental conditions on travel patterns. More specifically, it studies how topographic changes affect the likelihood of choosing cycling as a transport mode. We use mode choice data on students' home-to-school commuting trips from a previous study by Müller et al. (2008). The results show that models perform better when they account for the topographic conditions of the urban environment. We included this information in the model by introducing the “energy exerted” variable, which significantly improves the model and the results. The implications of this study are manifold; it guides the consolidation or expansion of school-based transportation network planning in Germany and prompts further analysis of active transportation systems, such as bike, pedelec and e-bike sharing systems. Overall, transportation policy should seek to foster active transportation, as it provides the greatest benefits for society and has a direct impact on people's well-being, while notably reducing the negative environmental and socioeconomic impacts of motorized transport.     

Use of the Urban Core Index to analyze residential mobility: the case of seniors in Canadian metropolitan regions

The present research intends to fill gaps identified in the current literature in the classification of the urban environment (i.e. city vs. suburbs), something that is important in urban and transportation planning, especially in the context of seniors. It does so first by proposing an urban/suburban classification that takes into account multiple census variables to provide a richer yet fine-grained and standardized classification of urban and suburban census tracts – the “Urban Core.” The Urban Core is then compared with the more common classification of the “Inner City,” that is based on age of housing. The proposed definition is then applied to examine if recent behavior of seniors has been consistent with the contention that they will increasingly move to the city – something that has been suggested in the media and grey literature. This is done by examining disaggregate data from four Canadian censuses on households moving to the Urban Core or suburbs, by age group. This is done initially graphically, and then logistic regressions are used to analyze how the effect of being a senior on moving to the Urban Core has evolved over the four censuses, while controlling for other socio-demographic variables. As such, using the proposed definition of the Urban Core, analysis suggests that seniors have been increasingly moving away from the Urban Core, behavior that is inconsistent with a hypothesis of a return to the city for seniors in the future.     

The safe mobility of older drivers: a challenge for urban road designers

For many older adults in most of the Western world, continued mobility (with associated health, well-being, independence and quality of life) means access to a private vehicle, either as a driver or as a passenger. However older driver serious injury and fatality rates per distance travelled are higher than middle-aged drivers, and crash and injury rates are likely to increase in the coming decades as a result of the ageing population, increased car ownership and overall travel amongst older people. Evidence suggests that contributory factors to this high risk are (for most) frailty, (for some) the high proportion of driving in urban areas, and (for a few) reduced fitness to drive as a result of medical conditions and associated functional limitations. Australasia has recently adopted the ‘Safe System’ approach which aims to manage vehicles, the road infrastructure, speeds, and the interactions between these components, to ensure that when crashes do occur, crash energies will remain at levels that minimize the probability of death and serious injury. A system which aspires to achieving Safe System objectives cannot ignore the challenges that older road users pose – and will pose – to the transport system. This paper discusses the so-called ‘older driver problem’, presents crash data and evidence of the impacts of driving location and reduced fitness to drive on crash risk, and recommends countermeasures within the ‘Safe System’ context, with particular reference to urban road design and operation.     

Transport policy and the provision of mobility options in an aging society: a case study of Ontario,Canada

This paper examines the provision of mobility options being one of the important policy areas vital to addressing transportation accessibility of the elderly. A provincial analysis, taking the case of the Province of Ontario in Canada, is warranted given that the country’s highly decentralized system puts provincial policies at the forefront in meeting this challenge. The paper evaluates the important progress made in this policy area and stressed the need to go beyond the traditional policy focus on the less able-bodied elderly and consider the increased heterogeneity of the elderly population with respect to lifestyle, preferences, resources, health and physical abilities. While significant efforts have been made, a more explicit recognition of population aging in Ontario’s transport policy motivation that could strongly influence transport strategies and investments attuned to the mobility concerns in an aging society remains to be seen. The paper summarizes the general concerns in the literature, policy developments, and the challenges in crafting solutions in terms of policy and research for Ontario and other regions with similar institutional setup.     

Influencing factors and mechanisms on consumers' behavior: A case of tea tourism in China

This study explores the factors affecting tea tourism, including the action mechanisms and the impact level of each factor influencing consumer behavior intentions, to contribute to predicting tea tourism consumer behavior. This study surveyed 377 potential tea tourists and constructed a theoretical model of tea tourism consumers' planned behavior using SPSS and AMOS. The results show that: (a) The experiential perception and opportunity perception of tea tourists can significantly affect their attitudes, (b) The self-efficacy perception and convenience perception of tea tourists can significantly affect their perceptual control, and (c) The attitude of tea tourists can significantly positively influence their behavioral intention. This study not only broadens the applications boundary of the theory of planned behavior, but it also provides a new perspective for research on the behavioral awareness of tea tourism consumers. The findings have implications for predicting and promoting future tea tourism in China and beyond.     

The global distribution of the burden of road traffic injuries: Evolution and intra-distribution mobility

This research examines the evolution of the distribution across 187 countries of mortalities per 100,000, disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), years of life lost (YLL) and years lived with disabilities (YLD) due to road traffic injuries between 1990 and 2010 using the distribution dynamics approach. Fatal and non-fatal burdens of road traffic injuries display contrasting external shape dynamics and intra-distribution mobility. The results show that while the shape of the global distribution of YLD due to road traffic injuries (RTIs) has become tighter over time, the cross-country distributions of mortalities, DALYs, and YLL from road crashes have become more dispersed. The implication of the results is that international efforts should make a priority of targeting the prevention of a greater spreading out of the distribution of the burden of fatal RTIs. The exchange of relative positions within the distributions is substantial, but there is no linear relationship between a country's change in its relative position for the burden of fatal and non-fatal RTI distributions. Thus, further research is needed to determine whether policy interventions dealing with the burden of fatal RTIs also alleviate the burden of non-fatal RTIs and vice versa.