scholarly journals Future access to essential services in a growing smart city: The case of Surrey, British Columbia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome Mayaud ◽  
Martino Tran ◽  
Rafael Henrique Moreas Pereira ◽  
Rohan Nuttall
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Public Transport ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Population Change ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Healthcare Facilities ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Essential Services ◽  
The City

The concept of accessibility – the ease with which people can reach places or opportunities –lies at the heart of what makes cities livable, workable and sustainable. As urban populations shift over time, predicting the changes to accessibility demand for certain services becomes crucial for responsible and ‘smart’ urban planning and infrastructure investment. In this study, we investigate how projected population change could affect accessibility to essential services in the City of Surrey, one of the fastest growing cities in Canada. Our objectives are two-fold: first, to quantify the additional pressure that Surrey’s growing population will have on existing facilities; second, to investigate how changes in the spatial distribution of different age and income groups will impact accessibility equity across the city. We evaluated accessibility levels to healthcare facilities and schools across Surrey’s multimodal transport network using origin-destination matrices, and combined this information with high-resolution longitudinal census data. Paying close attention to two vulnerable population groups – children and youth (0–19 years of age) and seniors (65+ years of age) – we analyzed shifts in accessibility demand from 2016 to 2022. The results show that population growth both within and outside the catchments of existing facilities will have varying implications for future accessibility demand in different areas of the city. By 2022, the city’s hospitals and walk-in clinics will be accessible to ~9,000 and ~124,000 more people (respectively) within a predefined threshold of 30 minutes by public transport. Schools will also face increased demand, as ~8,000 additional children/youth in 2022 will move to areas with access to at least half of the city’s schools. Conversely, over 27,000 more people – almost half of them seniors – will not be able to access a hospital in under 30 minutes by 2022. Since low-income and senior residents moving into poorly connected areas tend to be more reliant on public transport, accessibility equity may decline in some rural communities. Our study highlights how open-source data and code can be leveraged to conduct in-depth analysis of accessibility demand across a city, which is key for ensuring inclusive and ‘smart’ urban investment strategies.

scholarly journals Do Bus Rapid Transit Systems Improve Accessibility to Job Opportunities for the Poor? The Case of Lima, Peru

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 2795 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Oviedo ◽  
Lynn Scholl ◽  
Marco Innao ◽  
Lauramaria Pedraza
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Public Transport ◽  
Public Transit ◽  
Double Difference ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
Rapid Transit ◽  
Policy Objective ◽  
The Poor ◽  
High Concentrations ◽  
The City

Investments in public transit infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean often aim to reduce spatial and social inequalities by improving accessibility to jobs and other opportunities for vulnerable populations. One of the central goals of Lima’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project was to connect low-income populations living in the peripheries to jobs in the city center, a policy objective that has not yet been evaluated. Building on secondary datasets of employment, household socio-demographics and origin–destination surveys before and after the BRT began operations, this paper examines the contribution of Lima’s BRT system to accessibility to employment in the city, particularly for low-income public transit users. We estimated the effects on potential accessibility to employment, comparing impacts on lower versus higher income populations, and assessed the changes in location-based accessibility to employment before (2004) and after implementation (2012) for treatment and comparison groups. We found that the BRT line reduced travel times for commuters to reach jobs, in comparison with traditional public transport in the city. However, the coverage of the BRT declines in areas with high concentrations of poor populations, limiting the equitability of accessibility improvements. The analysis by socioeconomic sub-groups found positive effects of the BRT system on accessibility for the higher income areas. Relative to the control group, accessibility increased in the 10-km boundary area of the BRT by 0.01, a seven percent increase relative to the treatment baseline accessibility index in the higher socioeconomic (SES) areas of the city. In contrast, in the areas with high concentrations of lower SES populations, the double difference estimate indicated an 11 percent decrease relative to the baseline accessibility index (0.09). We build on case-specific findings and international literature to reflect on policy avenues to include the poor in the mobility benefits of BRT systems. These measures include targeted fare subsidies for low-income groups, fare integration with other forms of public transport that reduce the cost of transfers, and the increase of coverage of the BRT through the integration of stations with non-motorized infrastructure.

scholarly journals Changes in Spatial Inequality and Residential Segregation in Metropolitan Lima

2021 ◽  
pp. 471-490
Author(s):  
Graciela Fernández-de-Córdova ◽  
Paola Moschella ◽  
Ana María Fernández-Maldonado
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Residential Segregation ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Diversity Index ◽  
Transitional Zone ◽  
Spatial Inequality ◽  
Dissimilarity Index ◽  
Occupational Groups ◽  
The City

AbstractSince the 2000s, Lima city shows important changes in its socio-spatial structure, decreasing the long-established opposition between the centre and the periphery, developing a more complex arrangement. Sustained national economic growth has allowed better socio-economic conditions in different areas of the city. However, high inequality still remains in the ways of production of urban space, which affects residential segregation. To identify possible changes in the segregation patterns of Metropolitan Lima, this study focuses on the spatial patterns of occupational groups, examining their causes and relation with income inequality. The analysis is based on the 1993 and 2007 census data, measuring residential segregation by the Dissimilarity Index, comparing with the Diversity Index. The results confirm trends towards increased segregation between occupational groups. Top occupational groups are concentrated in central areas, expanding into adjacent districts. Bottom occupational groups are over-represented in distant neighbourhoods. In-between, a new, more mixed, transitional zone has emerged in upgraded formerly low-income neighbourhoods. Areas of lower occupational diversity coincide with extreme income values, forming spaces of greater segregation. In the metropolitan centre–periphery pattern, the centre has expanded, while the periphery has been shifted to outer peripheral rings.

scholarly journals Characterizing the disproportionate burden of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern among essential workers in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zain Chagla ◽  
Huiting Ma ◽  
Beate Sander ◽  
Stefan Baral ◽  
Sharmistha Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Greater Toronto Area ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Essential Services ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Policies And Programs ◽  
Public Health Strategies ◽  
Shared Risk ◽  
The City

Importance: The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern (VOC) across North America has been associated with concerns of increased COVID-19 transmission. Characterizing the distribution of VOCs can inform the development and implementation of policies and programs to address the prevention needs of disproportionately affected communities. Objective: We compared per-capita rates of COVID-19 cases (overall and VOC) from February 3, 2021 to March 10, 2021, across neighborhoods in the health regions of Toronto and Peel, Ontario, by proportion of the population working in essential services and income. Design: Descriptive epidemiological analysis, integrating COVID-19 surveillance and census data. Per-capita daily epidemic curves were generated using 7-days rolling averages for cases and deaths. Cumulative per-capita rates were determined using census-reported population of each neighbourhood. Setting: The study setting was the city of Toronto and the region of Peel (the City of Brampton, Mississauga, and Caledon), Canadas largest cities with a combined population of 4.3 million. This area of Canada has had one of the highest incident rates of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. Participants: We used person-level data on laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 community cases (N=22,478) and census data for neighborhood-level attributes. Exposures: We stratified neighbourhood using dissemination areas which represent geographic areas of approximately 400-700 individuals, into tertiles by ranking the proportion of population in each neighbourhood working in essential services (health, trades, transport, equipment, manufacturing, utilities, sales, services, agriculture); and the per-person equivalent household income. Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s): The primary outcomes were laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases overall and VOC positives by neighbourhood. Results: During the study period, VOC cases emerged faster in groups with lowest income (growth rate 43.8%, 34.6% and 21.6% by income tertile from lowest to highest), and most essential work (growth rate 18.4%, 30.8% and 50.8% by tertile from lowest tertile of essential workers to highest tertile of essential workers). Conclusions and Relevance: The recent introduction of VOC in the large urban area of Toronto has disproportionately affected neighbourhoods with the most essential workers and lowest income levels. Notably, this is consistent with the increased burden of non-VOC COVID-19 cases suggesting shared risk factors. To date, restrictive public health strategies have been of limited impact in these communities suggesting the need for complementary and well-specified supportive strategies including vaccine prioritization to address disparities and overall incidence of both VOC and non-VOC COVID-19.

scholarly journals Insights from self-organizing maps for predicting accessibility demand for healthcare infrastructure

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome Mayaud ◽  
Sam Anderson ◽  
Martino Tran ◽  
Valentina Radic
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Public Transportation ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Computational Techniques ◽  
Clustering Methods ◽  
Urban Accessibility ◽  
The City

As urban populations grow worldwide, it becomes increasingly important to critically analyse accessibility – the ease with which residents can reach key places or opportunities. The combination of ‘big data’ and advances in computational techniques such as machine learning (ML) could be a boon for urban accessibility studies, yet their application remains limited in this field. In this study, we aim to more robustly relate socio-economic factors to healthcare accessibility across a city experiencing rapid population growth, using a novel combination of clustering methods. We applied a powerful ML clustering tool, the self-organising map (SOM), in conjunction with principal component analysis (PCA), to examine how income shifts over time (2016–2022) could affect accessibility equity to healthcare for senior populations (65+ years) in the City of Surrey, Canada. We characterised accessibility levels to hospitals and walk-in clinics using door-to-door travel times, and combined this with high-resolution census data. Higher income clusters are projected to become more prevalent across the city over the study period, in some cases incurring into previously low income areas. However, low income clusters have on average much better accessibility to healthcare facilities than high income clusters, and their accessibility levels are projected to increase between 2016 and 2022. By attributing temporal differences through cross-term analysis, we show that population growth will be the biggest accessibility challenge in neighbourhoods with existing access to healthcare, whereas income change (both positive and negative) will be most challenging in poorly connected neighbourhoods. A dual accessibility problem may therefore arise in Surrey. First, large senior populations will reside in areas with access to numerous, and close-by, clinics, putting pressure on existing facilities for specialised services. Second, lower-income seniors will increasingly reside in areas poorly connected to healthcare services; since these populations are likely to be highly reliant on public transportation, accessibility equity may suffer. To our knowledge, this study is the first to apply a combination of PCA and SOM techniques in the context of urban accessibility, and it demonstrates the value of this clustering approach for drawing planning policy recommendations from large multivariate datasets.

The Role of Accessibility to Public Transport and Quality of Walking Environment on Urban Equity: The Case of Santiago de Chile

2018 ◽  
Vol 2672 (35) ◽  
pp. 129-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Tiznado-Aitken ◽  
Juan Carlos Muñoz ◽  
Ricardo Hurtubia
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Public Transport ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Modal Shift ◽  
Lorenz Curves ◽  
Santiago De Chile ◽  
Walking Environment ◽  
The City

Most studies of public transport accessibility have focused on proximity to stops, walking distances or time to reach them. This approach ignores other accessibility barriers, such as the quality of the urban environment of these walks. The aim of this research is to analyze both accessibility to public transport stops and the quality of the urban walking environment, exploring fairness issues across the city in terms of these two dimensions. The proposed methodology considers the definition of two indicators: walking accessibility to public transport stops and quality of the walking environment, considering different attributes and dimensions. These indicators are later used to develop a fairness analysis at the local and metropolitan level, using Lorenz curves, Gini coefficient, and Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) poverty measures. A diagnosis based on these indicators for Santiago de Chile allows us to suggest public policy priorities to improve accessibility to public transport and promote modal shift. The results show that 12 out of 34 municipalities in Santiago are deprived of one or both dimensions, not managing to achieve minimum fairness standards. Moreover, since a correlation between low income and poor access and urban space quality is detected, urban fairness across the city would benefit from centralized urban policies not depending on the budget of each administrative division.

scholarly journals Resilience and Vulnerability of Public Transportation Fare Systems: The Case of the City of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tálita Santos ◽  
Marcelino Aurélio Silva ◽  
Vicente Aprigliano Fernandes ◽  
Greg Marsden
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Public Transport ◽  
Public Transportation ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
High Capacity ◽  
Socioeconomic Indicators ◽  
Road Transportation ◽  
The Face ◽  
High Level ◽  
The City

Resilience is the ability of a system to adapt, persist, and transform as a reaction to threats, which may be external or internal to the system, while vulnerability is the state of being susceptible to harm from exposure to stresses associated with environmental and social change and from the inability to adapt. Based on a study of the threats that can affect urban mobility, we identified a gap regarding the analysis of the levels of resilience and vulnerability in the face of subsidy threats that can severely affect developing countries. This article measures the level of resilience and vulnerability due to the absence of public transport fare subsidies. For this purpose, we developed an approach based on fuzzy logic and applied it in 33 administrative regions (ARs) of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We obtained four matrices of the levels of vulnerability and resilience of each of the regions as an origin and destination. The results show that areas nearest to the downtown region and those with high-capacity transportation available (commuter train and/or subway, systems with many transfer points) are more resilient, while a high level of vulnerability is associated with low income, negative socioeconomic indicators, and the predominance of road transportation to reach jobs. The contribution of this paper is the method applied to analyse the levels of vulnerability and resilience of public transport, which includes a threat that can cause a rupture that impacts routines and job accessibility in a region.

scholarly journals Ecological and economic multicriteria optimization of operating alternative propulsion vehicles within the city of Ostrava in the Czech Republic

Equilibrium ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 907-943
Author(s):  
Kamila Janovská ◽  
Iveta Vozňáková ◽  
Petr Besta ◽  
Marek Šafránek
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Public Transport ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Evaluation Procedure ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Multi Criteria Evaluation ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
The City

Research background: Individual car transport significantly burdens the environment, especially in the centres of large cities. There is pollution, traffic jams and an increase in overall noise. In the area of passenger car transport, legislation is being significantly tightened. Therefore, there are also increasing demands on public transport operators in the Czech Republic. Previously, most of the fleet consisted of diesel vehicles. These have been gradually replaced by drives that are significantly more environmentally friendly, such as the Compressed natural gas drive. The requirements defined in relation to the reduction of vehicle emissions are increasingly stricter. A number of cities, not only within the European Union, are addressing significant issues concerning the future of public transport. Purpose of the article: The main objective of the article is to demonstrate an in-depth analysis of the operation of transport vehicles in the Statutory City of Ostrava, both from the cost and environmental point of view. The comparison of transport means using CNG, electric and diesel propulsion is made. Specific factors such as the route profile or the environmental impact of the mode of transport are also taken into account. The extent of the data processed and the multidimensional nature of the assessment offer a unique analysis of the problem. The article provides an exact view of the advantages and disadvantages of operating specific means of transport. Everything is based on data on transport operations in the city of Ostrava (the Czech Republic, EU). Methods: The comprehensive evaluation is based on the application of methods from the field of financial accounting, evaluation of measured data from the operation of transport means and, last but not least, on the analysis of empirical data from the given area. The analysed data set is unique due to the time period, as is the multi-criteria evaluation methodology.  Findings & value added: The analysis performed demonstrated the economic viability of operating CNG vehicles. The main added value of the article is the unique multi-criteria evaluation procedure for the vehicles. The paper shows the evaluation of a complex decision problem in the transport field in the form of a case study implemented in the city of Ostrava. The evaluation results then consider both cost and environmental factors, which can be described as a comprehensive and highly innovative approach. The defined assessment can then be applied to other European and world metropolises.

THE DEVELOPMENT AND SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE PROGRAM OF MEASURES ON IMPROVEMENT OF ORGANIZATION OF TRANSPORT SERVICE OF THE POPULATION IN THE METROPOLIS

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (26) ◽  
pp. 91-95
Author(s):  
D. A. Smirnov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Transport System ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
Public Transport ◽  
Road Network ◽  
System Development ◽  
Transport Service ◽  
Transport Services ◽  
The City

The article reveals the content of measures to improve the organization of transport services in the metropolis. The key directions of the city transport system development are considered. The analysis of the offered offers is carried out. Keywords: metropolis, transport development, public transport, street and road network.

TURNING FARMERS INTO SOCIAL FARMER ENTREPRENEURS FOR DISADVANTAGED PEOPLE

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remus Runcan
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Physical Work ◽  
Healthy Environment ◽  
Rural And Urban Areas ◽  
Rural Development Programme ◽  
Rural And Urban

According to Romania’s National Rural Development Programme, the socio-economic situation of the rural environment has a large number of weaknesses – among which low access to financial resources for small entrepreneurs and new business initiatives in rural areas and poorly developed entrepreneurial culture, characterized by a lack of basic managerial knowledge – but also a large number of opportunities – among which access of the rural population to lifelong learning and entrepreneurial skills development programmes and entrepreneurs’ access to financial instruments. The population in rural areas depends mainly on agricultural activities which give them subsistence living conditions. The gap between rural and urban areas is due to low income levels and employment rates, hence the need to obtain additional income for the population employed in subsistence and semi-subsistence farming, especially in the context of the depopulation trend. At the same time, the need to stimulate entrepreneurship in rural areas is high and is at a resonance with the need to increase the potential of rural communities from the perspective of landscape, culture, traditional activities and local resources. A solution could be to turn vegetal and / or animal farms into social farms – farms on which people with disabilities (but also adolescents and young people with anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide, and alexithymia issues) might find a “foster” family, bed and meals in a natural, healthy environment, and share the farm’s activities with the farmer and the farmer’s family: “committing to a regular day / days and times for a mutually agreed period involves complying with any required health and safety practices (including use of protective clothing and equipment), engaging socially with the farm family members and other people working on and around the farm, and taking on tasks which would include working on the land, taking care of animals, or helping out with maintenance and other physical work”

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