Union Policy and the Older Worker.

The European Union policy strategies on the sustainability of the transport system pursue the goals of maximizing safety and environmental benefits and reducing the severity and frequency of crashes, congestion, and pollutant emission rates. A common issue is the planning of the most effective solution for operational and safety management at intersections. In this study, an egg turbo roundabout is proposed as the alternative solution to a conventional roundabout in Southern Italy which suffers from traffic congestion. A comparative analysis is carried out using microsimulation techniques to investigate the safety effects and operational improvements of converting a traditional priority intersection into standard roundabout or turbo roundabout layout. In particular, the VISSIM software is used to explore the most relevant operational performance measures: queue length, travel times and delays. The lowest values of these measurements are recorded for the simulated turbo roundabout, thus making this scheme more appropriate in terms of operational performances. With regard to safety analysis, the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM) is used to collect information on the predicted number of conflicts, the probability, and severity of the potential collisions. The results suggest that, for the specific case study, the safety levels of the standard roundabout and the turbo roundabout are approximately comparable.

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Soft Spaces as a Traveling Planning Idea: Uncovering the Origin and Development of an Academic Concept on the Rise

Journal of Planning Literature ◽

10.1177/0885412221992287 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 088541222199228

Author(s):

Eva Purkarthofer ◽

Kaisa Granqvist

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

United Kingdom ◽

Policy Making ◽

Nordic Countries ◽

Contextual Influences ◽

Planning Systems ◽

European Union Policy ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Union Policy ◽

Conceptual Evolution

This article analyses the academic concept of “soft spaces” from the perspective of traveling planning ideas. The concept has its origin in the United Kingdom but has also been used in other contexts. Within European Union policy-making, the term soft planning has emerged to describe the processes of cooperation and learning with an unclear relation to planning. In the Nordic countries, soft spaces are viewed as entangled with the logics of statutory planning, posing challenges for policy delivery and regulatory planning systems. This article highlights the conceptual evolution of soft spaces, specifically acknowledging contextual influences and the changing relation with statutory planning.

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Expenditure-Based Indicators of Energy Poverty—An Analysis of Income and Expenditure Elasticities

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14010008 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 8

Author(s):

Johannes Thema ◽

Florin Vondung

Keyword(s):

Energy Expenditure ◽

Micro Data ◽

European Union Policy ◽

Energy Poverty ◽

Union Policy ◽

Depth Sensitivity ◽

Policy Agendas ◽

Poverty Indicators ◽

Specific Country ◽

The Eu

Energy poverty is high up on national and European Union policy agendas. A number of possible indicators to measure the issue have been identified in the literature, but comparable data with European coverage is scarce. The EU Commission thus proposes four independent indicators on the “EU Energy Poverty Observatory” based on self-reported items from the pan-European surveys on income and living conditions (SILC) and household budgets (HBS). It is of increasing public interest to analyse social impacts of energy policies, and quantify energy poverty indicators also from modelling. This paper first shortly outlines how the expenditure-based indicators using HBS micro data may be directly linked to existing macroeconomic models through their defining variables (energy expenditure and income). As endogenous modelling based on micro data is difficult, the link may be country-specific elasticities. The main contribution of the paper is a systematic in-depth sensitivity analysis of the two indicators to changes in income and energy expenditure following varying patterns in the underlying distributions of the micro data. The results may be used by future soft links to models. The results display sometimes counterintuitive effects. We find that whether these indicators increase/decrease after a change of income or energy expenditure largely depends on the specific country-wise income and energy expenditure distribution between households on a micro-level. Due to their definition, the examined indicators are especially sensitive, when income changes alter the indicator threshold values, which in these cases are the median values in underlying distributions. We discuss these findings and relate them to several indicator shortcomings and potential remedies through changes in indicator definition.

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Where is the justice in EU anti-trafficking policy? Feminist reflections on European Union policy-making processes

European Journal of Women s Studies ◽

10.1177/13505068211029324 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 135050682110293

Author(s):

Sharron FitzGerald ◽

Jane Freedman

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

Sex Trafficking ◽

Personal Experience ◽

Security Policy ◽

Organised Crime ◽

Law And Order ◽

European Union Policy ◽

Union Policy ◽

Policy Forum ◽

The Eu

In this article, we reflect on our personal experience of acting as ‘independent academic experts’ in an European Union (EU) policy forum, to reflect on how the EU utilises gender to legitimise certain policy discourses in combating sex trafficking. Starting from our personal experience, we draw on wider feminist research on gender expertise and on Fraser’s new reflexive theory of political injustice, to consider how the EU structures debates in this area to determine ‘who’ is entitled to speak and be heard on this issue. In a context in which sex trafficking policy intersects with a variety of competing agendas on – among other things – law and order, organised crime, immigration, asylum and border security policy, our argument will suggest that the exclusion of critical feminist voices and lack of alternative perspectives permits much scope for continuing inequality and injustice.

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