Urban Travel Behavior and Socio-Spatial Issues in the Mena Region: What Do We Know?

Abstract Unlike literature and studies coming from high-income or Western countries, the existing conducted on the Middle East and North Africa fail to draw a nearly complete image of the characteristics of passenger travel behaviors in the urban areas of the region. This gap necessitates a holistic review of the previous studies and comparing their results of those of the international findings. This paper summarizes the status of urban travel behavior studies on the MENA region under eight categories of socioeconomics, land use, perceptions and attitudes, urban sprawl, neighborhood design, public transportation use, active mobility, and new technologies and concepts. Descriptive literature review and desk research depicts both lack of research results or data and differences between the behaviors in the MENA region and the Western countries. Moreover, based on the background review, this paper provides a list of recommendations for having more sustainable mobility in the MENA region.

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Enabling and Emerging Sensing Technologies for Crowd Avoidance in Public Transportation: A Review

10.36227/techrxiv.16811191.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Donatella Darsena ◽

Giacinto Gelli ◽

Ivan Iudice ◽

Francesco Verde

Keyword(s):

Information And Communication Technologies ◽

Public Transportation ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Intelligent Transportation System ◽

Route Planning ◽

Transportation System ◽

Normal Operation ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Detection Techniques ◽

Bus Stops

Avoidance of crowding situations in public transportation (PT) systems is crucial to foster sustainable mobility, by increasing the user’s comfort and satisfaction during normal operation, as well as to manage emergency situations, such as pandemic crises as recently experienced with COVID-19 limitations. This paper presents a comprehensive review of several crowd detection techniques based on Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, which can be adopted to avoid crowding in various segments of the PT system (buses/trams/trains, railway/subway stations, and bus stops). To discuss such techniques in a clear systematic perspective, we introduce a reference framework called SALUTARY (Safe and Reliable Public Transportation System), which in our vision employs modern information and communication technologies (ICT) in order to: (i) monitor and predict crowding events; (ii) adapt in real-time PT system operations, i.e., by modifying service frequency, timetables, routes, and so on; (iii) inform the users of crowding events by electronic displays installed in correspondence of the bus stops/stations and/or by mobile transport applications. It is envisioned that the new anti-crowding functionalities can be incrementally implemented as an addon to the intelligent transportation system (ITS) platform, which is already in use by major PT companies operating in urban areas. Moreover, it is argued that in this new framework, additional services can be delivered, such as, e.g., online ticketing, vehicle access control and reservation in severely crowded situations, and evolved crowd-aware route planning.

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Urban travel characteristics in relation with jobs-housing balance and accessibility: results of a survey in Lahore, Pakistan

GeoScape ◽

10.2478/geosc-2019-0003 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 31-54

Author(s):

S. Atif Bilal Aslam ◽

Houshmand E. Masoumi ◽

Syed Arif Hussain

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Public Transportation ◽

Travel Behavior ◽

Urban Travel ◽

Mass Public ◽

Future Production ◽

Private Car ◽

Neighborhood Scale ◽

Transportation Research ◽

Emerging And Developing Countries

Abstract The circumstances of the relations of jobs-housing balance and urban travel behavior are not clear in emerging and developing countries. There are limited reliable data suitable for testing the hypotheses regarding the associations of the neighborhood-level number of employment opportunities in these countries. This manuscript summarizes the results of an explorative survey undertaken in Lahore, Pakistan to support empirical analyses testing these hypotheses. The survey was undertaken in spring 2018 in six neighborhoods of Lahore and collected the data of 417 respondents. The short questionnaire applied in the survey facilitated generation of 15 individual and household, socioeconomic, and mobility-related variables of different types. Moreover, 9 land use variables as well as jobs-housing ratios were estimated for each respondent within his/her 600-meter street-network pedestrian shed. The produced dataset reveals preliminary descriptive statistics about the relations of employment and travel behavior, particularly commuting, in a less-studied context of Pakistan. It is found that a decent job-housing balance at neighborhood scale alone cannot affect the travel pattern much in the Pakistani context. It needs to be supplemented with other planning interventions, mainly the accessibility to an integrated and efficient mass public transportation system, discouraging private car based policies and promotion of sustainable non-motorized travel modes. In the future, production of disaggregate mobility and land use data will add value to urban transportation research in the Global South.

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Going carless in different urban fabrics: socio-demographics of household car ownership

Transportation ◽

10.1007/s11116-021-10239-8 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

L. E. Karjalainen ◽

M. Tiitu ◽

J. Lyytimäki ◽

V. Helminen ◽

P. Tapio ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Transportation ◽

Urban Form ◽

Urban Areas ◽

National Level ◽

Urban Environments ◽

Neighborhood Density ◽

Car Ownership ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Demographic Profiles ◽

Residential Distance

AbstractDiverse physical features of urban areas alongside socio-demographic characteristics affect car ownership, and hence the daily mobility choices. As a case of sustainable mobility, we explore how various urban environments and socio-demographics associate with the spatial and social distribution of household car ownership and carlessness in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland. Three urban fabrics characterizing the study area are established based on the transportation mode (walking, public transportation, or automobile) the physical urban environment primarily supports. The national level Monitoring System of Spatial Structure and Urban Form database, and the National Travel Survey (2016) are utilized to further include spatial and socio-demographic variables into our analysis across these fabrics. Our results show that households with and without cars differ in terms of residential distance to the city center, neighborhood density, house type, and socio-demographic profiles. Single pensioners and students are most likely to be carless, whereas families represent the opposite. Within the carless households the differences are also evident between different groups. For the more affluent households residing in dense and well-connected areas, and mostly possessing driver’s licenses, carlessness is presumably a choice. Contrarily, many other carless households represent the less affluent often located in the more distant, low-density, and less accessible areas, while also possessing less driver’s licenses, making carlessness more of a constraint, as the local urban fabric does not support such lifestyle. Consequently, carless households should be increasingly recognized as a focus group in sustainable urban planning in terms of identifiable best practices and potential vulnerability.

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What affects our urban travel behavior? A GPS-based evaluation of internal and external determinants of sustainable mobility in Stuttgart (Germany)

Transportation Research Part F Traffic Psychology and Behaviour ◽

10.1016/j.trf.2017.05.004 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 48 ◽

pp. 61-73 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Manuela Schoenau ◽

Martin Müller

Keyword(s):

Travel Behavior ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Urban Travel

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Sustainable Mobility Policy Analysis Using Hybrid Choice Models: Is It the Right Choice?

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13052993 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (5) ◽

pp. 2993

Author(s):

Gustavo García-Melero ◽

Rubén Sainz-González ◽

Pablo Coto-Millán ◽

Alejandra Valencia-Vásquez

Keyword(s):

Policy Analysis ◽

Public Transportation ◽

Travel Behavior ◽

Latent Variables ◽

Mode Choice ◽

Choice Models ◽

Sensitivity Study ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Explanatory Variables ◽

The Impact

In recent years, sustainable mobility policy analysis has used Hybrid Choice Models (HCM) by incorporating latent variables in the mode choice models. However, the impact on policy analysis outcomes has not yet been determined with certainty. This paper aims to measure the effect of HCM on sustainable mobility policy analysis compared to traditional models without latent variables. To this end, we performed mode choice research in the city of Santander, Spain. We identified two latent variables—Safety and Comfort—and incorporated them as explanatory variables in the HCM. Later, we conducted a sensitivity study for sustainable mobility policy analysis by simulating different policy scenarios. We found that the HCM amplified the impact of sustainable mobility policies on the modal shares, and provided an excessive reaction in the individuals’ travel behavior. Thus, the HCM overrated the impact of sustainable mobility policies on the modal switch. Likewise, for all of the mode choice models, policies that promoted public transportation were more effective in increasing bus modal shares than those that penalized private vehicles. In short, we concluded that sustainable mobility policy analysis should use HCM prudently, and should not set them as the best models beforehand.

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The role of transport planning in the sustainable development of the Irkutsk agglomeration

проект байкал ◽

10.51461/projectbaikal.70.1896 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 94-98

Author(s):

Alexei Levashev ◽

Maxim Sharov ◽

Olga Lebedeva ◽

Alla Lytkina ◽

Alexandra Butuzova ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Transportation ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Transport Infrastructure ◽

Negative Consequences ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Modeling Tools ◽

The Sustainable Development ◽

Transportation Services ◽

Service Areas

The lack of integrated territorial and transportation planning in Irkutsk and Irkutsk agglomeration has led to the degradation of transport infrastructure. A number of measures are proposed to improve the efficiency of the transport system, including the elaboration of a development plan for sustainable mobility with a focus on public transportation services for urban areas. The use of modern transport modeling tools allows to take into account the negative consequences of reducing transport accessibility, but requires the integration of accumulated information about the characteristics of the service areas to increase the accuracy of transport forecasts.

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Enabling and Emerging Sensing Technologies for Crowd Management in Public Transportation Systems: A Review

10.36227/techrxiv.16811191.v2 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Donatella Darsena ◽

Giacinto Gelli ◽

Ivan Iudice ◽

Francesco Verde

Keyword(s):

Real Time ◽

Information And Communication Technologies ◽

Public Transportation ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Transportation Systems ◽

Normal Operation ◽

Reference Architecture ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Crowd Management ◽

Bus Stops

Management of crowd information in public transportation (PT) systems is crucial to foster sustainable mobility, by increasing the user’s comfort and satisfaction during normal operation, as well as to cope with emergency situations, such as pandemic crises, as recently experienced with COVID-19 limitations. This paper presents a taxonomy and review of sensing technologies based on Internet of Things (IoT) for real-time crowd analysis, which can be adopted in various segments of the PT system (buses/trams/trains, railway/subway stations, and bus stops). To discuss such technologies in a clear systematic perspective, we introduce a reference architecture for crowd management, which employs modern information and communication technologies (ICT) in order to: (i) monitor and predict crowding events; (ii) adapt in real-time PT system operations, by modifying service frequency, timetables, routes, and so on; (iii) inform in real-time the users of the crowding status of the PT system, by means of electronic displays installed inside vehicles or at bus stops/stations, and/or by mobile transport applications. It is envisioned that the innovative crowd management functionalities enabled by ICT/IoT sensing technologies can be incrementally implemented as an add-on to traditional intelligent transportation system (ITS) platforms, which are already in use by major PT companies operating in urban areas. Moreover, it is argued that, in this new framework, additional services can be delivered, such as, e.g., on-line ticketing, vehicle access control and reservation in severely crowded situations, and evolved crowd-aware route planning.

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A Large Scale, App-Based Behaviour Change Experiment Persuading Sustainable Mobility Patterns: Methods, Results and Lessons Learnt

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11092674 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (9) ◽

pp. 2674 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Francesca Cellina ◽

Dominik Bucher ◽

Francesca Mangili ◽

José Veiga Simão ◽

Roman Rudel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Energy Consumption ◽

Public Transportation ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Large Scale ◽

Controlled Trial ◽

Drop Out ◽

Future Research ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Randomized Controlled ◽

Lessons Learnt

The present urban transportation system, mostly tailored for cars, has long shown its limitations. In many urban areas, public transportation and soft mobility would be able to effectively satisfy many travel needs. However, they tend to be neglected, due to a deep-rooted car dependency. How can we encourage people to make sustainable mobility choices, reducing car use and the related CO 2 emissions and energy consumption? Taking advantage of the wide availability of smartphone devices, we designed GoEco!, a smartphone application exploiting automatic mobility tracking, eco-feedback, social comparison and gamification elements to persuade individual modal change. We tested the effectiveness of GoEco! in two regions of Switzerland (Cantons Ticino and Zurich), in a large-scale, one year long randomized controlled trial. Notwithstanding a large drop-out rate experienced throughout the experiment, GoEco! was observed to produce a statistically significant impact (a decrease in CO 2 emissions and energy consumption per kilometer) for systematic routes in highly car-dependent urban areas, such as the Canton Ticino. In Zurich, instead, where high quality public transport is already available, no statistically significant effects were found. In this paper we present the GoEco! experiment and discuss its results and the lessons learnt, highlighting practical difficulties in performing randomized controlled trials in the field of mobility and providing recommendations for future research.

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Congestion, Road Safety, and the Effectiveness of Public Policies in Urban Areas

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11185092 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (18) ◽

pp. 5092 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Daniel Albalate ◽

Xavier Fageda

Keyword(s):

Public Transportation ◽

Traffic Congestion ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Road Safety ◽

Public Policies ◽

Sustainable Transportation ◽

Urban Traffic ◽

Road Accidents ◽

Local Policy ◽

Sustainable Mobility

Congestion and road accidents are both considered essential challenges for sustainable mobility in large cities, but their relationship is only partially explored by the literature. In this paper, we empirically examine different public policies aimed at reducing urban traffic congestion but which may also have indirect effects on road accidents and casualties. We use data from 25 large urban areas in Spain for the period 2008–2017 and apply econometric methods to investigate how a variety of public policies do affect both negative externalities. Although the relationship between congestion and road safety is complex, we find that the promotion of certain modes of public transportation and the regulation of parking spaces may contribute to making cities more sustainable, both in terms of the time spent traveling and the probability of being affected by an accident. Considering whether policies addressing congestion improve or damage road safety as an indirect result is a useful approach for local policy-makers and planners in their attempt to get sustainable transportation outcomes.

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The Role of Culture in Urban Travel Patterns: Quantitative Analyses of Urban Areas Based on Hofstede’s Culture Dimensions

Social Sciences ◽

10.3390/socsci8080227 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (8) ◽

pp. 227 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Ali Enes Dingil ◽

Federico Rupi ◽

Joerg Schweizer ◽

Zaneta Stasiskiene ◽

Kasra Aalipour

Keyword(s):

Public Transportation ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Urban Transport ◽

Transport Systems ◽

Travel Patterns ◽

Urban Travel ◽

Culture Dimensions ◽

Per Capita ◽

The Relationship

Introduction—culture is an interpretation code of societies, which may explain common preferences in a place. Prediction of alternative transport systems, which could be adopted in a city at peace can help urban transport planners and policy makers adjust urban environments in a more sustainable manner. This paper attempts to investigate the role of Hofstede’s culture dimensions (HCD) on urban travel patterns in 87 urban areas and 41 countries. Analysis—this is the first, systematic analysis investigating the effect of culture on urban travel patterns with open source data from different urban areas around the world. The relationship between HCD and some urban travel patterns such as mode choices (individual transportation and public transportation), car ownership, and infrastructure accessibility (road infrastructure per capita) was demonstrated. In addition, the relationship between culture and some demographic indicators (population density and GDP per capita) closely associated with travel choices are checked. The relations between indicators were identified through correlations and regression models, and calibrated to quantify the relation between indicators. Results and Conclusions—good correlation values between Hofstede’s fundamental culture dimension: individualism/collectivism (IND/COL) and urban travel patterns were demonstrated with a reasonably good fit. The analysis showed that countries with higher individualism build more individualistic transport-related environments, which in turn result in more driving. On the other hand, collective nations tend to use more public transportation. There is significant evidence that, in the case of nations, an increase in tree culture dimensions: collectivism, uncertainty, and masculinity, results in greater usage of public transport.

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