Enhancing equitable service level: Which can address better,dockless or dock-based Bikeshare systems?

Dockless bikeshare systems show potential for replacing traditional dock-based systems, primarily by offering greater flexibility for bike returns. However, many cities in the US currently regulate the maximum number of bikes a dockless system can deploy due to bicycle management issues. Despite inventory management challenges, dockless systems offer two main advantages over dock-based systems: a lower (sometimes zero) membership fee, and being free-range (or, at least free-range within designated service areas). Moreover, these two advantages may help to solve existing access barriers for disadvantaged populations. To date, much of the research on micro-mobility options has focused on addressing equity issues in dock-based systems. We have limited knowledge of the extent to which dockless systems can help mitigate barriers to bikeshare for disadvantaged populations. Using San Francisco as a case study, because the city has both dock-based and dockless systems running concurrently, we quantify bikeshare service levels for communities of concern (CoCs) by analyzing the spatial distribution of service areas, available bikes and bike idle times, trip data, and rebalancing among dock-based and dockless systems. We find that dockless systems can provide greater availability of bikes for CoCs than for other communities, attracting more trip demand in these communities because of a larger service area and frequent bike rebalancing practices. More importantly, we notice that the existence of electric bikes helps mitigate the bikeshare usage gap between CoCs and other tracts. Our results provide policy insights to local municipalities on how to properly regulate dockless bikeshare systems to improve equity.     

On constituting cyclists as ‘hazards’

‘Hazard perception’ has become an integral part of novice driver education and training. Cyclists are often identified as one of many ‘hazards’ to look out for. We speculate that constituting cyclists as ‘hazards’, something that presents a danger or threat, may foster negative attitudes toward cyclists. Rather than accepting cyclists as ‘hazards’, our study examined the conditions that have made it possible to identify cyclists as ‘hazards’ in novice driver preparation. Informed by Michel Foucault's work on discursive practices, the analysis focused on the ‘road safety’ literature (1900–2017), the changing context in which road safety knowledge has been produced and the implications for the production of road space. This literature is important given the authority of scientific knowledge in western societies and its role in managing and governing populations. We found a shift in the middle of the twentieth century from drivers being identified as ‘hazards’ to drivers being identified as perceivers of ‘hazards’. At this time, researchers began studying drivers for their ability to recognise hazards: cyclists were routinely listed among the ‘hazards’ drivers should perceive. Out of 200 articles published on drivers' ‘hazard perception’ since the 1960s, one third categorised cyclists as ‘hazards’. Such research has informed the development and implementation of ‘hazard perception’ tests and, following Foucault, it participates in producing road space and shaping how drivers can think about themselves and other road users. While ‘scientific’ studies constitute cyclists as potential threats or sources of harm they lend authority to negative views of cyclists. We suggest ‘traffic participation’ as a more inclusive approach to driver education and training.     

Understanding accessibility through public transport users' experiences: A mixed methods approach

The quantitative measurement of accessibility through public transport has become more complex and accurate over time. However, it lacks many of the deeper nuances of how people actually experience their travel environments. Our previous works have highlighted the importance of incorporating the lived travel experiences of passengers within accessibility indicators, considering the quality of the walking environment and different attributes of the public transport services.Building on these works, this mixed-method research seeks to further improve the characterization of accessibility according to users' travel experiences, as described by those attributes that inhibit or enhance access to opportunities within the city. We use content analysis of focus groups, data gathered in a brief survey and sociodemographic and public transport data for our analyses. Our main contributions are (i) to develop a conceptual framework to analyze qualitative data on how people relate and discuss their public transport accessibility experiences and (ii) to develop accessibility indicators differentiating user perceptions. We apply this novel conceptual framework and methods to the unique urban morphology of two municipalities of Santiago de Chile.We identified different ‘socially constructed’ narratives for buses and metro. The participants focused on barriers to accessibility, showing an important relationship between them, as well as substantial differences in their overarching positive perception of metro and negative for buses. However, when disaggregating the analysis by primary transport mode and location, we found ‘hidden’ values for buses, recognizing its capillarity and underlying connectivity with the metro system. Furthermore, we found a dissimilar perception of transport environments when disaggregating the analysis by gender, age and location, which translated into different accessibility profiles for the various public transport users. From these experiential qualitative perspectives, it was thus possible to determine some attributes that had been previously overlooked in more quantitative studies but which are important when analyzing public transport accessibility for different population groups.     

Women's travel writing and the legacy of Romanticism

Women's travel writing reveals how literary and artistic discourses influence the way we read and write about journeys. This paper considers the way women's travel writing has adapted to, and adopted, the discourse of Romanticism, from its beginnings as a philosophy of political and sexual revolution, individual freedom and escape, to a more diffuse sense which has infiltrated modern attitudes to travel. We consider a classic travel text from the Romantic period, and discuss its legacy. Adopting Buzard's argument [(1993). The Beaten track: European tourism, literature and the ways to ‘Culture’ 1800–1918. Oxford: OUP], we consider how travel changed through the long nineteenth century. We discuss how the twentieth-century Romantic attraction of travel is marketed through the tourist industry as one of the main reasons to get away from it all and discover the ‘authentic’: this desire is reflected in travel texts. Recent writing reflects the influence of Romanticism by celebrating the individual as a wandering free spirit on a self-quest, whose writing is ‘authentic’, spontaneous and confessional: that is, the legacy of sensibility. We conclude that Romanticism has left a dual legacy for travellers, of political commitment and inner journey. Authors discussed include Mary Wollstonecraft, Gertrude Bell, Isabella Bird and Sara Wheeler.     

Public transport accessibility accounting for level of service and competition for urban opportunities: An equity analysis for education in Santiago de Chile

Several cities around the world have changed their transportation planning paradigm, understanding that the prime goal is to provide access to opportunities for everyone. To address this goal, public transport plays a fundamental role and, therefore, it is key for developing a sustainable and equitable city.This paper proposes a methodology to analyze access to opportunities through public transport incorporating the user's valuation of attributes that impact the level of service on his/her trip and the competitiveness for urban opportunities. Using data from Santiago, Chile, we applied the proposed methodology to analyze accessibility to higher-quality public primary schools. We compare total travel time (TTT) with a proposed measure of total generalized travel time (TGTT) using simple potential and competitive accessibility indicators, accounting for the subjective valuation of walking time, travel time, waiting time, comfort and transfers, and translating them into in-vehicle time units.We find that the inclusion of competition has a more substantial impact than including the subjective valuation of the level of service in the accessibility to educational opportunities. Using competitive measures with TGTT, we found that around 20% of the zones in Santiago have at least a 50% deficit of higher-quality public education, and 71% of them are in peripheral areas. Furthermore, these zones, where medium and low-income population usually lives, can experience, on average, 1–2 transfers, 4–5 passengers per square meter, and 15-min waiting. We conclude that the proposed methodology provides a more comprehensive way to understand accessibility by incorporating the traveling experience, allowing to determine how and where to intervene to effectively improve accessibility, with a focus on urban equity.     

Divergent infrastructure: Uncovering alternative pathways in urban velomobilities

In recent decades, cycling facilities have moved to the forefront of many urban-planning and climate-action initiates. Yet much of the research and policy developments in sustainable transportation are concentrated in high-investment areas, with sparse attention to travel conditions in low-income localities. Drawing from ethnographic methods, this paper explores socio-spatial inequalities and struggles for transportation space within the Mexican bajío. Focusing on the city of Aguascalientes and its outskirts, I explore the implementation of cycling facilities in a context of rapid-freeway expansion, neoliberal restructuring and public-transit divestment. Specifically, this paper analyzes the fragmented implementation of cycling lanes in certain areas of the city, while drawing attention to the experiences of low-income and peri-urban cyclists who operate at the margins of broader motor-vehicle infrastructure. In contexts of widespread spatial exclusions, I suggest that a focus on these commuters' mobility is needed to account for both the planned and inadvertent strategies that they assemble to bypass transportation barriers. What types of temporary bridges, improvised technologies and alternative pathways—what I define as divergent infrastructure—do cyclists configure when standardized systems fail to meet their present needs?     

Docked vs. dockless equity: Comparing three micromobility service geographies

Docked bike-share programs have proliferated worldwide, but studies find that the distribution of docked stations is geographically unequal. New dockless systems offer more flexibility compared to docked systems, but it remains unclear if dockless systems can address existing geographic inequities. This study examines all 32 US cities with both docked and dockless micromobility (bikeshare and e-scooter) programs and develops three service geography indicators to compare the geographic equity of docked versus dockless systems. We first use Lorenz curves and Gini indices to examine the overall spatial distribution of micromobility; we then use logistic and Tobit regressions to investigate how service geography corresponds to neighborhood characteristics. Results show that the distribution of docked systems is extremely unequal, and that dockless systems greatly reduce geographical inequalities relative to docked. Low-density areas and neighborhoods with low median household incomes, smaller shares of young people, and fewer zero-car households have limited micromobility service. Docked services are less prevalent in communities of color, and the implementation of dockless systems yields mixed outcomes for racial equity. Importantly, designated service areas do not always translate into available micromobility vehicles. Policymakers should use program design and performance metrics to address the mismatch between designated and actual service geographies and to ensure that micromobility services benefit marginalized communities.     

Virtual interlining within the European airport network: An airfare analysis

Virtual interlining, which covers the actively marketed or ‘non-hidden’ segment of all potential self-connecting flight itineraries, is often assumed to be a money-saving travel strategy. In this paper we assess the price difference between virtual interlined and ‘traditional’ flight itineraries within the intra-European airport network. We query Kiwi.com's recently developed Tequila platform, one of the few specialised online travel agencies (OTAs) offering both ‘traditional’ and virtual interlined flight itineraries, to obtain information on all available flights in the first week of August, October and December 2019. Using a series of sign tests, we investigate whether a statistically significant fare difference exists between the cheapest available (direct and/or indirect) ‘traditional’ and virtual interlined flight itineraries. Our results indicate a statistically significant fare difference between the cheapest indirect ‘traditional’ and the virtual interlined flight itineraries in favour of the latter. However, with regard to direct traditional flight itineraries the results are mixed. We explore the size and the scope of these patterns in more detail, and outline possible avenues for further research.     

Constructing the cycling citizen: A critical analysis of policy imagery in Brisbane,Australia

Cycling is often promoted as a low cost, accessible and virtuous strategy for solving many urban problems, including air pollution, congestion, climate change and the ‘obesity epidemic’. Yet the status of cycling as a quick and easy transport solution available to all is rarely problematised in policy documents. Focussing on cycling policy documents in sub-tropical Brisbane (Australia) we apply interpretive policy analysis to identify the ways policy representations of cycling and cyclists may work to exacerbate the marginality of certain groups by excluding them from representation. Through analysis of these policy documents, and reference to international research on cycling and the right to the city, this article sketches out the figure of the ‘Cycling Citizen’ constructed within them. The Cycling Citizen is characterised in these policy documents by a combination of actions (such as demonstrations of speed and skill), personal attributes (such as body-type, clothes and gender) and attitudes (particularly around virtue). We argue that the dominance of representations of MAMIL (middle-aged men in lycra) cyclists in the policy documents analysed may work to make cycling less accessible to those less likely to identify as MAMIL such as women, people of colour, people with lower incomes, and fat people, and this may effectively exclude them from cycling policy decisions, and negatively shape personal choices about cycling. We further argue that policy representations of cycling and cyclists matter because they have the potential to influence infrastructure and funding decisions which may have material consequences with respect to cycling mode share, equity and safety.     

A mobilities approach to tourism from emerging world regions

Increasing numbers of people from the emerging world regions, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East engage in tourism practices at domestic, intra-regional and long-haul international scales. In this article, we deploy an innovative application of the mobilities approach, which we argue moves beyond the Eurocentrism implicit in modernist tourism studies, in a comparative analysis of tourism in and from these regions and those in the ‘West’. Our analysis opens up the systematic study of tourism in emerging world regions in terms of the mobilities paradigm, and concludes: one, travel had a multiplicity of origins in societies in the emerging regions, but most did not possess an equivalent emic term to ‘tourism'. Two, tourism at domestic and intra-regional levels tends to be entangled with other discretionary mobilities, whereas the long-haul level is more differentiated. Three, the development of domestic discretionary travel in emerging regions can be represented by four overlapping ‘mobility constellations’. Four, there are significant historical differences between the regions in their long-haul mobility constellations, although their kinetic hierarchies are all still steep. Five, forms of movement and associated practices of discretionary travellers from the emerging regions and Western countries became increasingly similar under the impact of socio-technological, economic and cultural globalisation. Six, differences between the emerging regions, particularly Asia, and the West are most salient on the emic level of representations of international travel: the specific cultural motive forces for tourism do not centre on authenticity-seeking, but are instead bound up with prestige and markers of modernity.     

Nostalgia,Identity and Tourism: Bollywood in the Indian Diaspora

In today's global world of movement our personal identities are changing. So, ‘where is my “home”?’ and ‘what is my “identity”?’ have become essential questions in one's life. In recent times, more and more diasporic communities visit their homelands, perhaps to reroot their identities. This study explored the influence of Bollywood movies in the Indian diaspora's identity construction and notions of home and tourism behaviour to India. Findings revealed that the Indian diaspora's imagination of India is strongly informed by Bollywood movies. Yet, different generations of the Indian diaspora have different reasons for travelling to India. The first generation's nostalgia arises from watching Bollywood movies, and as a result, creates a motivation to travel to India. The second generation's main to travel behaviour to India is to experience the new ‘modern’ country, portrayed in the affluent surroundings of contemporary Bollywood movies. And, for those first generations, who have never seen India before, Bollywood movies enable them to romanticise their homeland and create an urge to visit India. Thus, Bollywood movies have immense importance in the Indian diaspora's identity construction, promote diaspora tourism and constitute a huge opportunity for economic development.     

The influence of attitudes towards healthy eating on food consumption when travelling

This study explores tourists' attitude towards healthy eating and its influence on their travel eating behaviour. Based on focus group interviews and literature review, two instruments were developed to measure healthy eating attitude and travel eating behaviour. Factor analysis results revealed two healthy eating attitude factors (‘food content and nutrients’ and ‘balanced diet and eating habit’), and five travel eating behaviour factors (‘novelty’, ‘risk avoidance’, ‘health steadfastness’, ‘familiarity’, and ‘food supplement and medicine’). The relationships among the factors were examined using structural equation modelling. The findings revealed that respondents who had a stronger attitude towards ‘balanced diet and eating habit’ tended to be more motivated by the ‘novelty’ factor; whereas ‘risk avoidance’, ‘health steadfastness’ and ‘familiarity’ were found to be associated with a stronger attitude towards ‘food content and nutrient’. The findings suggest that the healthy eating attitude construct is multidimensional and healthy eating conscious tourists should not be treated as a homogeneous group.     

The interplay between dockless bikeshare and bus for small-size cities in the US: A case study of Ithaca

As another mode of shared transportation, bikeshare can substitute or complement public transit. Prior studies mainly relied on self-reported survey data or aggregated station-level data from docked bikeshare systems, and their conclusions and implications were focused on large cities. It is largely unknown how and to what extent a dockless bikeshare system complements or substitutes public transit, especially in small cities. This study was set to measure the interplay between Lime dockless bikeshare and bus service in Ithaca, NY – a typical small-size college town – and its environs. By joining about 3.42 million records of bus stop data and 102 thousand Lime bikeshare trip data from 2019, two types of Bikeshare-Bus-Linkage (BBL) trips were identified, namely (1) the first-mile trip where a user rides a Lime to board a bus, and (2) the last-mile trip where a user bikes to their destination after alighting a bus. BBL trips were identified using a spatiotemporal proximity framework based on two important parameters: the catchment radius and the time window between a bus stop event and a Lime trip. Different values were tested with a sensitivity analysis, and the parameters were finally set at 100 ft. and 5 min. As such, 3026 BBL trips were identified, which was 3% of total Lime ridership or 0.1% of total bus ridership. Our findings indicated that Lime provided useful first- and last-mile transfers to bus service for commuters. The complementary effect was particularly strong in the urban core and with transit development and employment land use areas. Moreover, in the morning peak, there were more first-mile trips from residential areas to bus stops in the urban core, while in the evening peak more last-mile trips started from bus stops in the urban core to residential areas. Based on the unique first-mile and last-mile trip patterns identified, policy implications and recommendations for bikeshare operators, local government, transit agencies, and transportation policymakers were discussed to better integrate bikeshare and public transit.     

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.     

Growth Versus Equity: The Continuum of Pro-Poor Tourism and Neoliberal Governance

This paper proposes a model which integrates tourism in a continuum of poverty alleviation strategies within the antipodes of neo-liberalism and protectionism. It is argued that despite growing evidence in favour of regulative and (re)distributive approaches that in practice come closer to protectionism than neoliberalism, the most influential international organisations, as well as governments worldwide, follow a largely neoliberal laissez-faire approach to poverty alleviation coupled with market-friendly ‘pro-poor’ supplements. This paper argues that tourism per se fits very well into neoliberal interpretations of poverty alleviation, while it tends to aggravate poverty-enhancing inequalities if allowed to operate in a free market environment. Drawing on evidence from current research into poverty alleviation, it is argued that in order to be pro-poor, growth must deliver disproportionate benefits to the poor to reduce inequalities which have been found to limit the potential for poverty alleviation. Hence, it is necessary to shift policy focus from growth to equity, which calls for strong institutions capable of regulating the tourism industry and distributing assets in order to facilitate ‘pro-poor growth’. In this respect, this paper challenges the conventional pro-poor tourism approach with its implicit growth-bias, where strategies are judged as pro-poor if they deliver net benefits to ‘the poor’ even if ‘the rich’ benefit disproportionately. However, through a contextualisation with the reality of politico-economic governance, this paper shows that strategies enhancing equity through shifting benefits towards the poor and, importantly, the poorest, are unlikely to be pursued in practice given policy-makers' neoliberal bias and systemic constraints. Hence, only strategies that are largely in sync with a neoliberal ideology and the ‘World Bank orthodoxy’, such as industry self-regulation or government incentives, have much potential to be implemented on a large-scale basis. More radical approaches such as pro-poor regulation and distribution – the equity side of the continuum – are bound to remain predominantly rhetoric of some United Nations organisations.     

From Mobike to no bike in Greater Manchester: Using the capabilities approach to explore Europe's first wave of dockless bike share

Globally, bike share schemes are an element of a rapidly changing urban transport landscape. Whilst many docked schemes are now embedded in cities around the world, the recent explosion of dockless systems provides an opportunity to evaluate claims that this form of shared mobility has the potential to alleviate common barriers to cycling, relieve congestion, boost low carbon travel, get people active, and reduce social exclusion. Drawing on a mixed methods study of 2270 online survey respondents and 27 interviews, all living in, working in or visiting Greater Manchester during a trial of dockless bike share, we explore the ways in which the technological, spatial and practical configuration of bike share schemes relate to a city's infrastructure and existing cycling practices. We question assertions that bike share provision necessarily results in increased rates of cycling and enhanced social inclusion.By using a capabilities approach and utlilising the concept of ‘conversion factors’ to describe the differing capacities or opportunities that people have to convert resources at their disposal into ‘capabilities’ or ‘functionings’, we show how the practice of bike sharing can influence a population's propensity to cycle, as well as how bike share interacts with established barriers to cycling. We find that many established barriers to cycling remain relevant, especially environmental factors, and that bike share creates its own additional challenges.We conclude that bike share operators must recognise the role of personal and social conversion factors more explicitly and be sensitive to the social and physical geography of cities, rather than assuming that a ‘one size fits all’ approach is adequate. To do this they should engage more closely with existing bodies, including transport authorities and local authorities, in co-creating bike share systems. Using the capabilities approach enables us to identify ways in which it could be made relevant and accessible to a more diverse population.     

The equity impacts of bus rapid transit: A review of the evidence and implications for sustainable transport

The paper offers an analysis of empirical evidence on the equity impacts of operational Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems in the Global South. The focus is on vertical equity, i.e. whether BRT systems achieve progressive benefits for poorer segments of the population. Findings from Africa, Asia, and Latin America all suggest that BRT does offer significant benefits to low-income groups, in terms of travel time and cost savings, access enhancement, and safety and health benefits. However benefits are often skewed toward medium-income users and thus less progressive than they might be. Two primary reasons for this are insufficient spatial coverage and inappropriate fare policies. While many features of BRT potentially allow it to deliver pro-poor outcomes, such outcomes only materialize if BRT implementers pay specific and sustained attention to equity. The paper identifies key issues that need to be addressed to steer BRT implementation toward more socially sustainable outcomes—including better integration with other transit, paratransit, and nonmotorized transport services, and with the housing sector.     

Pedagogies of Cultural Change: The Rotary International Youth Exchange Program and Narratives of Travel and Transformation

Every year, Rotary International sends thousands of American teenagers to live in foreign lands. Rotary is responsible for teaching students about travel and culture and for preparing teens for their year-long intercultural experience. Rotary International Exchange Students are ‘embedded tourists’, living in their host countries in order to ‘acquire’ a binational subjectivity. Rotary International's Program is a pedagogical site, where students are taught how to think about and consume cultural difference and are given ways of conceptualising tourism, travel, cultural adaptation, and personal transformation. Based on over three years of ethnographic research with Rotary clubs in the US Midwest and New England, this paper explores the narratives utilised by Rotary International as they socialise American teenagers for study abroad. The paper asserts that Rotary's narratives employ many of the tropes utilised in Euro-Western tourist and travel accounts. At the same time, the Rotary International Youth Exchange Program sees its students as cultural change agents and thus helps to cultivate in these students a sense of global citizenship by fostering a commitment to cultural diversity and an interest in intercultural communication. Hence, Rotary International's Youth Exchange Program is intentionally designed to bring about cultural change.