The formulation and evaluation of transport route planning alternatives: a spatial decision support system for the Via Baltica project,Poland

Transport planning plays an undeniably key role in the economic growth of any region. However, when done heedlessly this planning can be detrimental to the biophysical and social environment of the region. In transport route planning generally one or a few alternative routes are proposed, usually representing the interest of the proponent. If required, an environmental impact assessment is carried out on these alternatives. Although, EIA and SEA are meant to be effective in taking informed decisions about the proposed route, these alternatives – the heart of impact assessment – are themselves devised in a subjective and non-spatial manner.Such an approach may easily overlook routes, which could otherwise have been more suitable. A planning system that directly takes into account environmental and socio-economic considerations in selecting alternative routes facilitates sustainable development. This paper presents a holistic and coherent spatial multi-criteria network analysis method for the generation of optimal routing alternatives under different policy visions, in a network of existing roads.The presented methodology was case-tested for the highly contested 340 km portion of the Via Baltica corridor in Poland, a part of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) program. The methodology shows its ability to serve as a versatile effect-based decision support system for transport route planning at a strategically higher level of planning, particularly for (geographically) large-scale investment schemes.     

Diurnal pattern of transit ridership: a case study of the New York City subway system

We study the diurnal pattern of subway ridership in New York City. Our study complements the existing line of research that looks at the dynamics of a place by studying the socio-demographics of its visitor population. It also points out an important omission in ridership research on the time of day dimension. The study results identify five main classes of the diurnal patterns and demonstrate that station ridership’s diurnal pattern is closely related to the local built environment.     

Considering context and dynamics: A classification of transit-orientated development for New York City

Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) is a widely recognised planning strategy for encouraging the use of mass and active transport over other less sustainable modes. Typological approaches to TOD areas can be utilised to either retrospectively or prospectively assist urban planners with evidence-based information on the delivery or monitoring of TOD. However, existing studies aiming to create TOD typologies overwhelmingly concentrate input measures around three dimensions of: density, diversity and design; which might be argued as not effectively capturing a fuller picture of context. Moreover, such emphasis on static attributes overlooks the importance of human mobility patterns that are signatures of the dynamics of cities.This study proposes a framework to address this research gap by enhancing a conventional TOD typology through the addition of measures detailing the spatiotemporal dynamics of activity at transit stations; implemented for the selected case study area, New York City.     

Predicting transit mode choice of New Jersey workers commuting to New York City from a stated preference survey

This study examines transit mode choice preferences of New Jersey commuters traveling to New York City (NYC) with the objective of assisting trans-Hudson ferry service planning on the basis of variables significantly affecting mode choice. A stated preference survey was conducted to collect data from a total of 2134 respondents who commute from northern New Jersey to NYC. A mixed multinomial logit model (MMLM) with random coefficients was used to analyze the data. The study considered the choice between four transit modes—ferry, PATH train, bus, and commuter rail—all of which can be used to cross the Hudson River to travel from New Jersey to NYC. Essential model results are presented for all four modes, but detailed results are discussed for only the ferry, PATH, and bus modes. Model results indicate that commuters' choices are affected not only by travel time and cost for the segment of the journey that crosses the Hudson River, but also reliability and comfort during that segment, number of access modes required by the journey, and travel time and cost of trips from home to stations/terminals before crossing the river. The results also show that commuters' attachment to the modes they currently use serves as a barrier to switching to other modes. The most important takeaway from this research for transit service planning is that there is a need to consider the attributes of both individual trip segments as well as entire journeys between commuters' home and work when exploring changes to transit service characteristics.     

Bikesharing Trip Patterns in New York City: Associations with Land Use,Subways, and Bicycle Lanes

As bikesharing systems have proliferated, few studies have examined the trips made on these systems. In this paper, we examine trips between origin-destination pairs during three months in 2015 on New York City’s Citi Bike system. Findings suggest considerable variation across user types, across months, and across times of day. Principal findings indicate that bikesharing is used for transit access and egress during rush hours, and that stations located along the same high-quality bicycle route see far more trips than do other station pairs. Casual users complement subscribers’ usage by using bicycles more frequently during midday and the evening, and between areas characterized by nearby recreational land uses. Loop trips to and from the same station also occur and are likely recreational trips. The data analyzed is essentially a form of “big data.” That is, large data sets that are ubiquitously collected. The analysis suggests that in this case, “big data” that lacks the socio-economic data commonly collected and used in travel analysis can provide useful insights to planners.     

Streetcar projects as spatial planning: A shift in transport planning in the United States

Currently dozens of U.S. cities are in the midst of planning and building modern streetcar systems. Though seemingly mobility investments, the intended impacts of these streetcar projects reach beyond transportation and represent a strong turn toward strategic spatial planning through transportation infrastructure. Proponents of modern streetcars argue that they are tools of placemaking as much as if not more than improvements for transit services. Unlike transit investments of a century ago, when privately operated streetcars were a decentralizing force that helped disperse overcrowded central city cores and open new land for real estate development, current streetcar projects in the United States are expected to concentrate activity and economic development in select corridors. The majority of these new systems rely on transit technologies that are significantly improved over the carriages of old, with modern features, smooth rides and quiet operations. Yet for all the improvements to the vehicles and services, new streetcar investments no longer primarily improve transit accessibility. Rather, modern streetcars are part of strategic amenity packages cities use to achieve real estate and economic development goals. This use of transportation infrastructure as an amenity for a particular location is a shift away from traditional transportation planning processes, and the expected benefits, in particular, stand apart as being deliberately spatial. We use planning documents and data from ballot box initiatives to evaluate expected transportation benefits relative to indirect benefits through economic development. We find that approximately three-quarters of all expected benefits from streetcar projects accrue to property development with the remaining expected benefits assigned to transportation. However, we do not find sufficient empirical evidence in the literature to support such certain claims of positive effects on property values and the built environment. We argue that the increasing tendency of cities to leverage streetcar projects for non-transportation purposes represents a turn to the use of infrastructure as a tool of spatial planning.     

Managing motorization in sustainable transport planning: the Singapore experience

The primary objective of this paper is to make a connection between the Singapore story of land transport policy development and the pathway towards sustainable transport planning. Its innovation is to allow a parallel growth in motorization and public transit. The Singapore experience shows how a range of well-coordinated policies including efforts to control the number of cars in both ownership and usage, and at the same time increase the availability and rider-ship of public transit contribute to a sustainable transport system. The Singapore model provides a valuable reference for not only developing an alternative approach towards sustainable transport in countries where motorization is desired but also for understanding the various parameters important to the formulation of management policies. In particular, the paper contends the Singapore experience provides a model for Asian nations and cities.     

Integrated transport planning in the UK: From concept to reality

This paper explores the need for new planning authority practices and structures that can accommodate new policy demands, synergies and approaches to urban management in the UK. Initially it considers recent UK government ideas on the integration of transport and land use planning, exploring how the concept has been located carefully in relation to both established and emerging debates about, for example, sustainability, mobility and structures of governance. The paper then moves on to consider the relationship between these concepts in EU transport discourse taking an example from Sweden of what an integrated urban transport policy might look like on the ground. The final section develops a model of integration and applies this analytic construct to assess integration practices and outcomes of urban mobility management at the local authority level in England. The research uncovers implementation failures including duplication of procedures, failures in communication and the lack of clear and resourced responsibilities.     

Gravity models for dynamic transport planning: Development and implementation in urban networks

This paper describes the development and comparison through a real-life implementation of dynamic extensions of the entropy-based gravity model of trip distribution for dynamic transport planning purposes in urban networks. The single dynamic gravity model (SDGM) accounts only for the inter-period (long-term) evolution of travel demand. The doubly dynamic gravity model (DDGM) takes into account both the inter-period and intra-period (short-term or within-day) evolution of travel demand. The computational analysis and explanation of the differences between the two models are demonstrated in relation to different demand inputs, model parameters and performance measures.     

Traveling in the three-dimensional city: applications in route planning, accessibility assessment, location analysis and beyond

Indoor environments are increasingly important spaces in contemporary three-dimensional cities. Handling these micro-scale spaces within the broader context of outdoor - urban environments is a significant challenge in transportation analysis and geographic information science. This complexity stems from the greater computational requirements, the specificity of indoor network data structures, as well as the inherent perceptual intricacies of 3D visualization. As built environments grow in size and in complexity, two-dimensional urban geography research reveals its limits. This paper advocates for 3D network-based urban research and showcases the feasibility of this approach for three specific types of urban analytical functionalities, namely route planning, spatial accessibility assessment, and facility location planning. The latter modeling functionality can be viewed as foundational elements for comprehensive network-based three-dimensional analytics of urban environments. The effectiveness of the data modeling scheme and of the integrated software application 3DCityNet is discussed through the three coupled geospatial modeling functionalities.     

Demand responsive transport: towards the emergence of a new market segment

This paper focuses on recent British experience with telematics-based Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) services in rural areas. In recent years, the ability of DRT concepts to provide efficient, viable transport services has been greatly enhanced by the use of transport telematics as demonstrated in a variety of environments across Europe. The success of British local authorities in winning substantial funding under the Rural and Urban Bus Challenge programmes for the implementation of DRT has resulted in widespread interest in flexible forms of transport. It is thus timely to evaluate the impact of this substantial investment. Drawing on the experience of a number of UK schemes, the paper assesses the reasons for the new-found success of what is becoming a relatively well-accepted mode by concentrating on a variety of factors including: service characteristics (particularly route flexibility, flexibility of booking method and pre-booking regime), emerging markets and the overall contribution of DRT to increased social inclusion and intermodality. Impediments to the development of DRT services are highlighted. The paper also discusses current research into the next generation of DRT services and concludes by identifying some key issues for policy-makers concerned with the future implementation of DRT services.     

Monopoly and optimal nonlinear pricing: the case of route monopolies and heteregeneous demand in the air transport market

This paper explores the robustness of the one-dimensional screening model with respect to increasing the number of instruments and the number of characteristics. We study a case of nonlinear pricing (2 instruments (2 routes on which the airline provides customers with services), 2 characteristics (demand of services on these routes) and two values per characteristic (a low or a high demand of services on these routes)) and we show that none of the conclusions of the one-dimensional analysis remain valid. In particular, upward incentive compatibility constraint may be binding at the optimum. As a consequence, they may be distortion at the top of the distribution. In addition to this, we show that the optimal solution often requires bundling, while it is sometimes optimal for the monopolist to produce only one good or to exclude some buyers from the market. This means that the monopolist cannot fully apply his monopoly power and is better off selling two goods independently. We define all possible solutions in the case of a quadratic cost function for a uniform distribution of agent types and demonstrate that the range of services proposed by an airline is often larger than the corresponding range in demand.     

Does the built environment make a difference? Additional evidence from the daily activity and travel behavior of homemakers living in New York City and suburbs

Homemakers, unlike employed people who have jobs and unemployed people who are seeking jobs, are a special group who do not have to spend time working out of the home, commuting to work, or looking for a job. Given that a regular job typically takes 9 h (This includes an assumed half-hour one-way commute time.) a day, the discretion to allocate their time is presumably much greater than other groups.In this paper, we focus our attention on homemakers’ activity and travel behavior in neighborhoods with different characteristics (e.g., very dense areas, dense areas, and suburbs). The question to be answered is quite simple: are there differences between travel behaviors of homemakers living in different types of neighborhoods? If yes, can these differences be attributed to differences in the built environment?The dataset used in the study is the Household Interview Survey (HIS) collected in 1997/1998 in the New York metropolitan area. We found significant differences in activity and travel related behavior by homemakers living in different types of neighborhoods. Compared to suburban homemakers, New York City homemakers spend more time on discretionary activities and less time on maintenance activities; use public transportation and walk more frequently; and conduct fewer trip chains. The study found that both individuals’ socio-economic characteristics and built environment appear to play a role in explaining behavior. A probably more important factor in explaining people’s time use behavior is the interrelationship between activities and trips, and between different types of activities.     

The city-airport connection in the low-cost carrier era: Implications for urban transport planning

This article, examines differences between the behavior of passengers of low-cost and network airlines when choosing their transport mode for travel to airports. It is found that a passenger flying with a low-cost carrier is 6% less likely to take a taxi to the airport, but more than 4% more likely to drive a rented car and 2% more likely to use public transport than a user of a network carrier.     

Classifying railway stations for strategic transport and land use planning: Context matters!

The classification of railway stations is a potentially powerful tool for strategic transport and land use planning. Existing classifications rely strongly on the indicator “passenger frequency”, which focuses on transport related issues, blending performance with preconditions at a given site. We argue that a classification system for strategic planning should focus on the demands and conditions of the site within which the railway station must function, i.e. system context. Here, we present such a classification system: a cluster analysis of the 1700 Swiss railway stations relying solely on context factors. The resulting classes vary primarily in density (of land use and transport services) and use (commuting, leisure time, tourism). Common geographic patterns and class-specific dynamics are discernable. These results indicate that classification based on the relevant demands and conditions given by context leads to clearly interpretable classes and supports multi-perspective strategic planning for railway stations. The systematic approach allows for a better understanding of the interrelations between railway stations and their context.     

Informal motorbike taxi drivers and mobility injustice on Hanoi's streets. Negotiating the curve of a new narrative

The central government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Hanoi's municipal authorities are enthusiastically embracing a series of plans and policies for the capital city to create a sustainable mega-city. This state imaginary privileges ‘modern’ mobilities, championing highways, a bus rapid transport system, and an elevated metro, while so called ‘traditional’ means of moving around the city such as motorbikes, bicycles, or cyclos are being strongly discouraged and increasingly marginalised. For example, Hanoi officials are implementing a step-wise ban on motorbikes from downtown streets by 2030, while the majority of the urban population travels by motorbike, with about five million motorbikes plying the city's streets. While such an approach not only creates mobility injustice for lower socio-economic residents of the city as a whole, it threatens to undermine the livelihoods of thousands of informal motorbike taxi drivers (locally known as xe ôm). In this article I engage with the emerging mobility injustice literature to explore how state discourses regarding urban modernisation are impacting the possibilities for Hanoi's xe ôm drivers to maintain access to city streets and viable livelihoods. These drivers must negotiate emerging and often conflicting state policies, their enforcement, as well as new app-based competitors, all of which challenge the equitable distribution of motility and produce important frictions. Nonetheless, xe ôm drivers draw on their agency and creativity during their daily routines to push back, while also creating new narratives regarding their vital role in maintaining neighbourhood security. We thus see how marginalised individuals are counteracting policies they consider unjust, even when this urban agenda is embedded in a politically socialist context.     

R-Tresis: developing a transport model system for regional New South Wales

This paper sets out a demand modelling framework for the development of a regional transport and land use model system (R-Tresis), to be implemented for New South Wales (Australia). Traditionally, the focus of such a model system has been major metropolitan areas such as Sydney, where we have developed Tresis (Hensher, 2002). Given the growing concern about regional accessibility to many service classes, there is a need for a modelling capability that can be used to prioritize and guide policy decisions in regions that are often described as remote, rural, low density and small town. In developing a framework that is capable of integrating both demand and supply elements of transportation and land use activity, we recognized the challenges in developing primary data sources, and the high likelihood of a reliance on secondary data sources. This suggested an alternative approach to demand modelling that was not dependent on choice models; namely a suite of continuous choice models in which we capture the actual activities undertaken by each mode on both the demand and supply side at high spatial resolution.     

Destination image differences between visitors and non‐visitors: a case of New York city

This note discusses the influences of previous visits on tourists' destination images. The cognitive and affective images of New York City (NYC) appear to change in certain directions after visiting. The results also found that city images have a significant influence on tourists' visit intention. However, previous visits to NYC did not play any moderating effect between destination images and visiting intention. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.