Spatial analysis of shared e-scooter trips

Shared e-scooters have become a common mode of transportation in many cities around the world. E-sooters provide convenient and quick rides for short distances and can act as a connection for first/last mile trips. To date, limited studies have explored the spatial variation of e-scooter trips and there is knowledge to be gained by investigating variables associated with e-scooter trip generation. This study implemented a spatial analysis approach, Geographical Weighted Regression (GWR), to explore how factors relating to demographics, density, diversity, design, urbanism scores, distance to transit and other transportation-related variables influence e-scooter trips in Louisville, KY. More than 400,000 e-scooter trips across 159 Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZs) were included in the study. Results show TAZ-level factors including land use, age distribution, gender distribution, Walk Score and Park Score impacted the density of e-scooters trips in the TAZ. The GWR model showed improvements over a global Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model. Local goodness of fit ranged from 0.732–0.895 across the study area. This study can help governments and e-scooter sharing companies develop policies that maximize e-scooter use, equity, and accessibility while improving the mobility of cities.     

Notes on the practices and appearances of e-scooter users in public space

While the legalisation of and policies around e-scooters remain the cause of much debate worldwide, this article sheds lights on e-scooter users’ current practices and their interactions with pedestrians in the city. Taking an ethnomethodological approach to public space and mobility, we use video recordings of e-scooter riders to show, firstly, how riders dismount and then move to acquire rights to continue moving, thereby ‘playing’ with traffic rules, in order to weave rapidly through congested urban environments. Secondly, we examine how e-scooter riders and pedestrians deal with the potentially unexpected appearance of e-scooters via displays of attention, adjustments of speed, and the relative rights and obligations established via category-relevant spaces. The findings offer insights into the integration of e-scooters as one of what may be many new forms of electric powered micro-mobility in urban space.     

The early days of shared micromobility: A social practices approach

Urban mobility may be entering a period of substantive changes as new transport technologies (facilitated by developments in electrification, automation, and web 2.0 technologies for distributed, real-time transactions) provide new possibilities for movement. The recent arrival of shared electric scooters in some cities has been the topic of much conversation, particularly in relation to appropriate spaces for e-scooter use, and the safety of e-scooter users and pedestrians. This paper, however, takes a wider look at the early days of shared micromobility in New Zealand cities. Mobility is intricately connected to the wider social and cultural configurations of daily life, including its power relations, equalities and inequalities, and the spatial relations between people, places and opportunities. This paper draws on an online survey completed by residents of four New Zealand cities in which shared electric scooters became available in late 2018 or early 2019. Using a social practices approach, it explores early changes in the materials, competencies, and meanings associated with urban mobility as a response to the electric scooter trial. It discusses the disruptive potential of these changes, both for urban transport and for wider social relations.     

Vienna's path to sustainable transport

Vienna, Austria reduced the car share of trips by a third between 1993 and 2014: from 40% to 27%. The key to Vienna's success has been a coordinated package of mutually reinforcing transport and land-use policies that have made car use slower, less convenient, and more costly, while improving conditions for walking, cycling, and public transport. During 32 in-person interviews in Vienna in May 2015, a wide range of politicians, transport planners, and academics almost unanimously identified the expansion of the U-Bahn (metro) and parking management as the most important policies accounting for the reduction in car mode share since 1993. Implementation of sustainable transport policies in Vienna has been a long-term, multi-staged process requiring compromises, political deals, and coalition-building among political parties and groups of stakeholders. This consensual approach to policy development has been time-consuming. Vienna has not been the first city to introduce any particular policy, but it has masterfully adopted successful policies from other cities. The continuity of social democratic governments in Vienna since 1945 has provided a crucial political basis for long-term implementation. The Greens have vigorously pushed for accelerating implementation of sustainable transport policies since becoming part of the ruling coalition government in 2010. The progressive political environment in Vienna has been essential to its increasingly sustainable transport system. Other major cities in Western Europe have also reduced the share of trips by car since 1990. Together with Vienna, they provide useful lessons for other cities throughout the world on how to reduce car dependence.     

Using PAR to frame sustainable transport and social justice on policy agendas. A pilot experience in two contrasting Chilean cities

If sustainable transport is defined by emissions and energy, urban passenger transport in Chile could be considered “sustainable”, with two-thirds of trips made by walking, cycling or public transit. Recent studies, however, reveal that gender and equity issues are highly problematic, pointing to tensions between environmental and social sustainability.Given these tensions, a university-community collaboration, the Laboratory for Social Change, developed a pilot methodology to define and evaluate Transport Justice. We sought a relatively simple instrument, a Transport Justice report (Balance de Transporte Justo, BTJ) that could combine experiential and academic knowledge and thereby influence policy and decision-making more effectively.We used a participatory action research (PAR) approach to bring together community leaders and university researchers, and consider experiential and research data, through this “transport justice” lens. To start, we introduced the idea of “transport justice” with researchers in different disciplines and citizen organizations involved in relatively specific battles: fighting a highway, for better cycling facilities, or for reduced road speeds, for example.We focused on established issues, such as universal access, walkability, cycle-inclusion, but added children's freedom and autonomy, the wise city (older adults, heritage, identity), care and land use, and transport impacts on ecological services. Building on this collaboration, we also applied a transport justice survey in two contrasting Chilean cities, Santiago and Temuco.Our analysis reveals that, despite a planning system that favours high-income households whose members rely mainly on cars, the majority of pedestrians, cyclists, public transit and even car users would prefer a redistribution of road space and investment in favour of active transport. During the next phase of research (2020–2021), we will test how well these results are taken up by citizen organizations, politicians and senior government staff from all parties. This will allow us to evaluate its effectiveness as a policy and power distributing instrument.     

Sustainable transport challenges in a suburban university: The case of the Autonomous University of Barcelona

This paper provides detailed accounts of the transport patterns at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), including its motivations, barriers and user preferences, and explores the main transport challenges faced by the UAB campus. This suburban university is an important transport activity generator in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region, which is committed to achieving sustainable transportation. Results have been obtained through a personal survey (n=5525) of members of the university community. These show that the main limitations for changing travel mode from private means to non-motorised or public modes of transport are: the lack of adequate infrastructure, the marginal role of walking and cycling as a means of transport, and the longer time involved using public transport.     

Influence of the built environment on E-scooter sharing ridership: A tale of five cities

Electric scooter (e-scooter) sharing systems (ESSs) have been widely adopted by many cities around the world and have attracted a growing number of users. Although some studies have explored the usage characteristics and effects of the built environment on ESS ridership using one city as an example, few studies have considered multiple cities to obtain generalizable and robust results. To fill this research gap, we collect the ESS trip data of five cities in the U.S., namely Austin, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Louisville, and Portland, and explore the effects of the built environment on ESS ridership after controlling for socioeconomic factors. The temporal distributions of e-scooter ridership of different cities are similar, having a single peak period on weekdays and weekends between 11:30 and 17:30. In terms of spatial distribution, the ESS ridership is higher in universities and urban centers compared to other areas. Multilevel negative binomial model results show that ESS trips are positively correlated with population density, employment density, intersection density, land use mixed entropy, and bus stop density in the census block group. E-scooter ridership is negatively correlated with the median age of the population in the census block group and distance to the city center. The findings in this article can help operators understand the factors that affect the ridership of shared e-scooters, determine the changes in ridership when the built environment changes, and identify high-ridership areas when ESS is implemented in new cities.     

Perceptions of cycling among high school students and their parents

Cycling is a healthy, low-cost, and low-carbon alternative to motorized transport. As a relatively fast active mode of transport, cycling can overcome the distance barrier of walking, while also providing cardiovascular exercise and reducing demand for motor vehicle travel. The “cycling renaissance” has seen an increase in the number of cyclists in urban spaces, and there is evidence of increased investment in cycling infrastructure and cycle skills training in some places. Yet the number of high school students cycling to school is declining in many industrialized countries. Transport to school is a major contributor to daily traffic congestion, resulting in both local and global environmental concerns, and high school students have been relatively overlooked in research to date. In this paper, we present empirical material from a qualitative study of high school students and parents in Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand. Focus group sessions were conducted during 2014 and 2015 with students and parents separately, to explore their perceptions of modes of transport and transport to school decision making. Key findings relate to perceived safety, implicit messages, and social norms. We find that a complex range of factors contribute to perceptions of cycling safety, including features and perceptions of the built environment, traffic safety (including behaviors of other road users), previous cycling experiences (including accidents), and adolescents' cycling skills and on-road experiences. Overcoming concerns through behavioral and cultural interventions coupled with upskilling and thoughtful infrastructure may present a pathway to increasing rates of cycling.     

Is e-shopping likely to reduce shopping trips for car owners? A propensity score matching analysis

Reducing car use is commonly considered as a potential strategy to reduce transport-related problems such as traffic congestion and air pollution. The increasing use of online shopping may potentially replace shopping trips, thus possibly reducing car use. However, car owners – compared to non-car owners – can more easily visit physical stores and transport goods. Therefore, it can be assumed that online shopping is less likely to reduce shopping trips for car owners. Using 653 structured face-to-face interviews in Chengdu (China) in 2016, an empirical study is conducted. The results show that 44.0% of respondents indicated a decrease in shopping trip frequency after they started to purchase online, while only 14.4% indicated an increase in the frequency. This confirms that online shopping tends to be a substitute for shopping trips. Applying a propensity score matching approach, this paper further compares the likelihoods of changes in shopping trips caused by online buying between car owners and non-car owners, while considering sociodemographic factors, internet experiences, spatial attributes, and online shopping attitudes as covariates. The results indicate that – due to online buying – shopping trip frequency is less likely to decrease for car owners compared to non-car owners, while there is no significant difference in the likelihood of increasing shopping trip frequency between owners and non-owners. These findings imply that online shopping may not effectively reduce driving, thus unlikely being a valid solution for transportation problems resulting from the increasing use of cars.     

The path and time efficiency of residents' trips of different purposes with different travel modes: An empirical study in Guangzhou,China

Improving residents' travel efficiency and reducing carbon emissions from travel are the key issues for sustainable development of urban transportation. This study first employed a circuity index to measure the path efficiency of residents' trips based on 2015 survey data in Guangzhou and developed a generalized additive model (GAM) to investigate the relationship between the path efficiency and travel distance for different purposes of trip and different travel modes. On this basis, it further evaluated the time efficiency of different travel modes for each trip. The results showed that there is a complex and nonlinear relationship between the path efficiency and travel distance, which differs between different purposes of trips and different travel modes. In general, trips by non-motorized transport have a lower circuity index and higher path efficiency than those by cars or public transport. Moreover, non-motorized transport is the time-efficiency optimal mode for almost half of the trips, especially for daily shopping trips. However, people prefer to choose public transport on their trips even though public transport is not the time-efficiency optimal mode for these trips. Generally, only about half of the residents chose the time-efficiency optimal mode for their trips. Those who did not choose the time-efficiency optimal mode tended to choose the modes with higher carbon-intensity. The conclusions of this study indicate that for improving travel efficiency and reducing carbon emissions from transport, more efforts should be focused on the non-motorized travel environment and developing relevant policies to encourage more walking and cycling.     

Determinants of transport mode choice in metropolitan areas the case of the metropolitan area of the Valley of Mexico

The following paper examines the determinants of transport mode choice for trips in the Metropolitan Area of the Mexican Valley. Using a data set from the Mexican household travel survey (Encuesta Origen - Destino) conducted in 2017 and multinomial logistic regression, the influence of transportation supply, spatial characteristics and socio-economic factors on individual mode choice is estimated. To our knowledge, this is the first analysis of mobility behaviour in the Metropolitan Area of the Mexican Valley with this newly developed data set.The main findings show that a better Mass Rapid Transit infrastructure is not consistently positively associated with the likelihood of using this service. While a better road infrastructure is promoting the use of Mass Rapid Transit services over driving, it is negatively linked with the likelihood of walking and bicycling. These slow modes are mainly interfered with the distance to the city centre: the further away from the centre, the higher the likelihood of walking and bicycling instead of using the car.With respect to socio-economic characteristics of individuals, women and the young found to have a higher likelihood of using public transport than the car. In contrast, having children is negatively associated with the likelihood of using public transport. Moreover, a higher education of individuals is found to be positively associated with car use, while car availability is negatively associated with all other transport mode options.     

Micromobility evolution and expansion: Understanding how docked and dockless bikesharing models complement and compete – A case study of San Francisco

Shared micromobility – the shared use of bicycles, scooters, or other low-speed modes – is an innovative transportation strategy growing across the United States that includes various service models such as docked, dockless, and e-bike service models. This research focuses on understanding how docked bikesharing and dockless e-bikesharing models complement and compete with respect to user travel behaviors. To inform our analysis, we used two datasets from February 2018 of Ford GoBike (docked) and JUMP (dockless electric) bikesharing trips in San Francisco. We employed three methodological approaches: 1) travel behavior analysis, 2) discrete choice analysis with a destination choice model, and 3) geospatial suitability analysis based on the Spatial Temporal Economic Physiological Social (STEPS) to Transportation Equity framework. We found that dockless e-bikesharing trips were longer in distance and duration than docked trips. The average JUMP trip was about a third longer in distance and about twice as long in duration than the average GoBike trip. JUMP users were far less sensitive to estimated total elevation gain than were GoBike users, making trips with total elevation gain about three times larger than those of GoBike users, on average. The JUMP system achieved greater usage rates than GoBike, with 0.8 more daily trips per bike and 2.3 more miles traveled on each bike per day, on average. The destination choice model results suggest that JUMP users traveled to lower-density destinations, and GoBike users were largely traveling to dense employment areas. Bike rack density was a significant positive factor for JUMP users. The location of GoBike docking stations may attract users and/or be well-placed to the destination preferences of users. The STEPS-based bikeability analysis revealed opportunities for the expansion of both bikesharing systems in areas of the city where high-job density and bike facility availability converge with older resident populations.     

Implementing cycling infrastructure in a politicized space: Lessons from Toronto,Canada

Cycling infrastructure such as cycle tracks and painted bicycle lanes is critical in improving safety of existing cyclists and in increasing the overall mode share of bicycling in communities. However, the implementation of such infrastructure has been fraught with political contentiousness across North America. In this paper, we discuss how theories of automobility and the politics around it may help explain current active transportation planning practice. We then report findings from ten key informant interviews with municipal planners and engineers in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, Canada, in order to identify how they implement cycling infrastructure in the face of political opposition. We find that there are four principal strategies used to secure the political support and ensure the construction of cycling infrastructure across the region: 1) piggybacking on public works projects, 2) using external grants and funding, 3) pre-emptively re-routing cycling infrastructure, and 4) finding support from a political champion. Based on these findings, we conclude that the politicization of cycling infrastructure is a result of the dominance of automobility in Western transportation culture. In other words, it is not the physical presence of the cycling infrastructure, nor its social and political representations, but rather automobile that is political, and a battle for (road)space against it remains and may continue to remain a major policy and professional challenge.     

Searching for policy priorities in the formulation of a freight transport strategy: a canonical correlation analysis of freight industry attitudes

An efficient and effective freight transport strategy can be aided by early professional contributions from key stakeholders. One broad group who have historically been given limited opportunity to influence the drafting of a freight strategy, are commercial road users and shippers who manufacture and distribute goods. Utilising a data set collected in Australia in 1996 from a sample of organisations involved directly and indirectly in road freight transportation, views were sought on road infrastructure changes, new road infrastructure, non-road infrastructure needs and transport policies. An optimal scaling approach using non-linear canonical correlation is implemented to search for structural relationships between the underlying policy and infrastructure dimensions and the various industry categories. This framework provides a powerful mechanism for identifying differences among stakeholders in terms of their support for or opposition to specific policies. Results reveal the considerable differences in attitudes associated with the component parts of the freight industry.     

Walk-to-transit demand estimation methods applied at the parcel level to improve pedestrian infrastructure investment

Public transportation is a critical component of cities' transportation system that can be supported by a safe, complete, and connected pedestrian infrastructure. Agencies spend millions of dollars each year to improve transit ridership, yet many of the transit destinations do not have adequate pedestrian infrastructure to connect to the transit stops creating a substantial barrier to growing demand. This is particularly true in suburban areas. This paper presents a replicable methodology for estimating relative parcel-level transit demand such that analysts can conduct fine-grained evaluation and prioritization of the pedestrian network enhancements as they relate to public transit system. To this end, pedestrian infrastructure can boost transit ridership and enhance riders' safety. We rely on spatial data available in most cities coupled with land use and socioeconomic data to generate potential relative number of walk-to-transit trips for each parcel and weight the occupied road segments based on the results from mode choice and gravity models. Using this GIS-based tool, we identify road segments that have a higher potential in serving as a walking path to transit stops and prioritize gaps in existing sidewalk infrastructure. This result eliminates arbitrary sidewalk investment scoring programs and the reliance on transit walksheds to direct investment. We apply this method to a case study of the city of Knoxville and discuss the challenges and possible solutions. This approach can help city planners and engineers in data-oriented investment strategic management of sidewalk enhancement programs that support transit.     

Household decision-making for everyday travel: a case study of walking and cycling in Lancaster (UK)

Increased walking and cycling for short journeys in urban areas has many obvious advantages yet so far gains from the promotion of more sustainable travel of this type are mostly small. This paper reports on a large research project which uses a mixed method approach to explore attitudes to and perceptions of walking and cycling, and which examines the process of household decision-making for everyday travel and the constraints that this imposes. Using survey, interview and ethnographic data it is argued that many people hold ambiguous and sometimes contradictory views of walking and cycling as effective means of everyday travel, that what they do rarely matches precisely what they believe, and that the complexity and contingency associated with everyday travel for many households is a major barrier to the use of more sustainable travel modes. It is suggested that better understanding of these processes could help to inform both future transport policy and the promotion of walking and cycling for short trips in urban areas.     

Data-mining,GIS and multicriteria analysis in a comprehensive method for bicycle network planning and design

In many Brazilian cities, the most common procedure for planning cycling networks is using aggregated population data in census tracts, which may not take into account the true origin and destination of trips. It may also not identify potential users of a particular mode of transport. This is particularly important considering that implementing cycling infrastructures should be based on the assumption that they are able to meet the users' needs. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop and adopt an objective method to design and compare cycling networks based on data-mining of disaggregated origin-destination data, GIS resources, and multicriteria analysis techniques. The method follows three steps: 1) identifying potential users based on real user profiles, 2) designing proposed cycling networks and 3) a comparison between the networks proposed in this study and those developed by the municipality selected as a case study, considering real and potential users, as well as cost and benefit criteria. As a positive outcome, using disaggregated data allows for a reasonable estimate of the number of people served by the networks, a detailed analysis of their proximity to the infrastructure, as well as identifying potential users. Comparing cycling networks considering cost and benefit criteria shows that the chosen criteria were effective. It was also determined that the cycling network of the studied city poorly serves bicycle transport users, if compared to the proposed networks. These findings indicate that appropriate methods for planning cycling networks are still needed.     

Neighborhood walking densities: A multivariate analysis in Halifax,Canada

Neighborhood walkability is important to planners and policy makers in the public health, land use planning, and transportation fields. This research contributes to knowledge of walking behaviour by aggregating GPS-tracked walking trips as neighborhood walking densities, and investigating local characteristics affecting those densities. The study maps walking trips in urban and suburban neighborhoods of Halifax, Canada, using data from the Space-Time Activity Research (STAR) survey conducted in 2007–2008. Respondents completed a two-day time-diary, and their movements were tracked using a GPS data logger. The 1971 primary respondents recorded 5005 geo-referenced walking trips.From mapped walking tracks, walking distances were aggregated to 87 census tracts, and expressed as walking densities (per resident, per meter of road, and per developed area). Multivariate regression was used to examine which neighborhood variables and socio-demographic controls are most useful as estimators of walking densities. Contrary to much of the walkability literature, built-environment measures of road connectivity and dwelling density were found to have little estimating power. Rather, retail lot coverage ratio was the single most useful estimator, acting as a proxy to identify traditional retail shopping streets. Office and institutional land uses were also important contributory estimators (highlighting areas of dense employment), as were measures of residents' income and age.     

Do satisfying walking and cycling trips result in more future trips with active travel modes? An exploratory study

Previous studies have indicated that travel satisfaction - the experienced emotions during, and cognitive evaluation of, a trip - can be affected by travel mode choice and other trip characteristics. However, as satisfactory trips might improve a person's attitude towards the used mode, persons may be more likely to use that same mode for future trips of the same kind. Hence, a cyclical process between travel mode choice and travel satisfaction might occur. In this paper we begin to analyse this process—using a structural equation modelling approach on cross-sectional data—for people who engage in walking and cycling for leisure trips in the Belgian city of Ghent. The focus on walking and cycling reflects recent studies indicating that active travel is often associated with the highest levels of travel satisfaction. Results of this exploratory analysis offer tentative support for the idea of a cyclical process: the evaluation of walking and cycling trips positively affects the respondents' attitude towards the respective mode, which in turn has a positive effect on choosing that mode.     

Evaluation of land-use and transport network effects on cyclists' route choices in the Copenhagen Region in value-of-distance space

Growing interest in sustainable transportation systems has driven decision-makers toward policies and investments aimed at promoting cycling, but little to no effort has been made toward incorporating bicycle transport in transport planning models. This study contributes toward this direction by estimating a bicycle route choice model in value-of-distance space from a large sample of 3384 cycling trips that were traced with GPS devices in the Copenhagen Region. The novelty of this study lies in (i) observing cyclists' behavior in a cycling-oriented country, (ii) exploiting rich data about the cycling environment, (iii) estimating the model in value-of-distance rather than preference space, and (iv) not focusing only on preferences for traditional variables (e.g., distance, turns, hilliness, intersections, motorized road characteristics), but also on perceptions and preferences for bicycle facilities (e.g., bicycle lanes, bicycle paths, bicycle traces) and land-use designations (e.g., residential, industrial, sports, scenic areas). The findings from the model show that: (i) cyclists exhibit heterogeneous preferences for avoiding right and left turns, cycling the wrong way, using roundabouts and bridges, and cycling alongside residential and scenic areas; (ii) cyclists dislike cycling on unpaved and hilly surfaces and alongside larger roads; (iii) cyclists have clear perceptions about different types of bicycle facilities, with a preference for bicycle lanes and segregated paths; (iv) cyclists have clear perceptions about land-use designations, with a preference for cycling alongside sports and scenic areas; (v) time-of-day and air temperature contribute to the perceptions of cyclists and their preferences for bicycle facilities and land-use designations.