Travel and Emissions Analysis of Sustainable Transportation Policies with Activity-Based Modeling

Although activity-based models (ABMs) are starting to be used for metropolitan area transportation planning and policy making, experience is lacking in the use of the wealth of information and measures that such models offer. This paper reports on the implementation of an advanced ABM developed for the Tel Aviv, Israel, metropolitan area to analyze the various transport, activity, and emissions impacts of auto restraint, transit, and land use policies. The policy implications of various scenarios are presented. The results showed that a combination of aggressive pull-and-push measures to encourage more transit and less car use had only marginal impacts on total vehicle kilometers traveled, emissions, and greenhouse gas emissions. Other findings showed no synergic effects and suggested that some policies might have had unintended outcomes. All of the policies tested led to less congestion but increased accessibility at the same time; the increased accessibility attracted more trips to the city. Overall, this study showed that ABMs could provide important advantages in the analysis of various transport policies to improve sustainable transportation development and to enable detailed analyses of the synergic effects of various policies and their impact on many indicators. The paper advances the state of the practice of the use of ABMs for policy analysis, but much more experience and insight are needed on the best way to use the rich information and abundant measures obtained from such models.

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What Makes a City Bikeable? A Study of Intercity and Intracity Patterns of Bicycle Ridership using Mobike Big Data Records

Built Environment ◽

10.2148/benv.46.1.55 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 55-75

Author(s):

Ying Long ◽

Jianting Zhao

Keyword(s):

Big Data ◽

Average Distance ◽

Policy Implications ◽

Rating System ◽

City Centre ◽

Average Score ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Usage Frequency ◽

Share Data ◽

The City

This paper examines how mass ridership data can help describe cities from the bikers' perspective. We explore the possibility of using the data to reveal general bikeability patterns in 202 major Chinese cities. This process is conducted by constructing a bikeability rating system, the Mobike Riding Index (MRI), to measure bikeability in terms of usage frequency and the built environment. We first investigated mass ridership data and relevant supporting data; we then established the MRI framework and calculated MRI scores accordingly. This study finds that people tend to ride shared bikes at speeds close to 10 km/h for an average distance of 2 km roughly three times a day. The MRI results show that at the street level, the weekday and weekend MRI distributions are analogous, with an average score of 49.8 (range 0–100). At the township level, high-scoring townships are those close to the city centre; at the city level, the MRI is unevenly distributed, with high-MRI cities along the southern coastline or in the middle inland area. These patterns have policy implications for urban planners and policy-makers. This is the first and largest-scale study to incorporate mobile bike-share data into bikeability measurements, thus laying the groundwork for further research.

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Contesting the City

10.1093/oso/9780198705208.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Christian D. Liddy

Keyword(s):

Urban Politics ◽

Low Countries ◽

Late Medieval ◽

Urban Citizenship ◽

Town Government ◽

Medieval Europe ◽

Political Narrative ◽

Classical Models ◽

The Rich ◽

The City

The political narrative of late medieval English towns is often reduced to the story of the gradual intensification of oligarchy, in which power was exercised and projected by an ever smaller ruling group over an increasingly subservient urban population. This book takes its inspiration not from English historiography, but from a more dynamic continental scholarship on towns in the southern Low Countries, Germany, and France. Its premise is that scholarly debate about urban oligarchy has obscured contemporary debate about urban citizenship. It identifies from the records of English towns a tradition of urban citizenship, which did not draw upon the intellectual legacy of classical models of the ‘citizen’. This was a vernacular citizenship, which was not peculiar to England, but which was present elsewhere in late medieval Europe. It was a citizenship that was defined and created through action. There were multiple, and divergent, ideas about citizenship, which encouraged townspeople to make demands, to assert rights, and to resist authority. This book exploits the rich archival sources of the five major towns in England—Bristol, Coventry, London, Norwich, and York—in order to present a new picture of town government and urban politics over three centuries. The power of urban governors was much more precarious than historians have imagined. Urban oligarchy could never prevail—whether ideologically or in practice—when there was never a single, fixed meaning of the citizen.

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They Do Their Best, but Their Best Isn’t Good Enough: How Social Housing Can Support Older Tenants Aging in Place

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.075 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 23-23

Author(s):

Christine Sheppard ◽

Andrea Austen ◽

Sander Hitzig

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Social Housing ◽

Service Providers ◽

Policy Implications ◽

Service Model ◽

Building Trust ◽

Age In Place ◽

Access To Health ◽

The City

Abstract Toronto Community Housing (TCH) is the second largest social housing landlord in North America, and is home to over 27,000 older adults, half of whom live in 83 “seniors-designated” buildings. There is inadequate and inconsistent delivery of services in these buildings, negatively impacting tenants’ ability to age in place. We conducted two half-day consultations with service providers (n=74) and tenants (n=100) to identify strategies to improve unit condition, promote stable tenancies (i.e., prevent evictions) and enhance access to health and support services for older adults living in TCH. Through facilitated discussion, participants identified their top two recommendations for each priority area and reflected on the strategies that were hardest and easiest to implement, as well as the ones that would have the most and least impact on quality of life for older tenants. Participants recognized the need for more education as a way to empower older tenants and reduce stigma associated with unit condition issues (e.g., pest problems) and arrears. More frequent touch points with tenants was also recommended as a way to identify older adults at-risk of eviction and work proactively (instead of reactively) to support them. Service providers and tenants believed that system navigators working directly in the buildings would be a key facilitator to building trust and helping older tenants access needed services. Outcomes of the have several program and policy implications for TCH, as they partner with the City of Toronto to design a new integrated service model for the seniors-designated buildings.

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Rethinking planning in a digital marketplace: implications of e-commerce for land use policy in Toronto

10.32920/ryerson.14661402 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

John Federici

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Case Studies ◽

Land Use Policy ◽

Retail Development ◽

Goods Movement ◽

Planning Framework ◽

Land Use Policies ◽

Industrial Real Estate ◽

The City ◽

Municipal Level

The intention of the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe is to create a planning framework that achieves complete communities and a thriving economy. However, there is minimal direction for municipalities planning for retail development to realize these goals. This is problematic, as e-commerce is disrupting the retail industry and is transforming the commercial and industrial real estate that support it. This paper examines e-commerce growth over the past thirteen years in Canada and demonstrates how this is prompting changes in both land markets through two case studies. Case studies identify implications that e-commerce will create for land use policy in Toronto moving forward. Recommendations presented to address these implications prompt upper levels of government to collect data to inform decision making at the municipal level. Recommendations for the City of Toronto are aimed at relaxing land use policies to create a strategy to facilitate efficient goods movement. Key words: E-commerce; Land Use Policy; Toronto, Canada

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FROM THE CITY TO THE METROPOLITAN AREA

2nd International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences and Arts SGEM2015 ◽

10.5593/sgemsocial2015/b41/s15.050 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Boguslaw Podhalanski

Keyword(s):

Metropolitan Area ◽

The City

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THE POTENTIAL OF STRAVA DATA TO CONTRIBUTE IN NON-MOTORISED TRANSPORT (NMT) PLANNING IN JOHANNESBURG

ISPRS - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences ◽

10.5194/isprsarchives-xli-b2-587-2016 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol XLI-B2 ◽

pp. 587-594 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

M. K. Selala ◽

W. Musakwa

Keyword(s):

Sustainable Development ◽

Gated Communities ◽

Sustainable Transportation ◽

Modern World ◽

Negative Consequences ◽

Income Levels ◽

The North ◽

Smart Mobility ◽

The City ◽

Motorised Transport

Transportation is one of the most fundamental challenges of urban development in the modern world. Cities are currently moving towards sustainable transportation, which includes non-motorised transportation (NMT). The city of Johannesburg has a goal of becoming a smart city, with sustainable development and smart mobility. Encouraging the use of non-motorised transportation and public transport has the potential of reducing the use of private motorised transport and therefor its negative consequences within the city of Johannesburg. There is limited research on cycling and how cyclists interact with cycling infrastructure within the city. The lack of such knowledge hinders proper planning for NMT. This research studies the ability of geolocation based services to provide such information which can be useful in planning for NMT. Strava Metro application is the example of such geolocation based services. The potential of this app to influence planning is investigated. According to the information acquired by Strava Metro, there are more cyclists in suburbs at the centre of Johannesburg and towards the north and to the east, and in Kibler Park at the south western part of the city. There are indications that the numbers of cycling activities recorded by Strava Metro are affected by the availability of gated communities, income levels, crime levels and the provision of infrastructure.

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Behavioural changes in urban mobility in Barcelona due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions

10.31219/osf.io/urvn8 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Corinna Peters

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Public Transport ◽

Road Traffic ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Urban Transport ◽

Policy Implications ◽

Transport Sector ◽

Urban Mobility ◽

The City

This study assesses changes in mobility behaviour in the City of Barcelona due the COVID‐19pandemic and its impact on air pollution and GHG emissions. Urban transport is an important sourceof global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Improving urban mobility patterns is therefore crucial formitigating climate change. This study combines quantitative survey data and official governmentdata with in‐depth interviews with public administration officials of the City. Data illustrates thatBarcelona has experienced an unprecedented reduction in mobility during the lockdown (a 90%drop) and mobility remained at comparatively low levels throughout the year 2020. Most remarkableis the decrease in the use of public transport in 2020 compared to pre‐pandemic levels, whereas roadtraffic has decreased to a lesser extent and cycling surged at times to levels up to 60% higher thanpre‐pandemic levels. These changes in mobility have led to a radical and historic reduction in airpollution, with NO2 and PM10 concentration complying with WHO guidelines in 2020. Reductions inGHG emissions for Barcelona’s transport sector are estimated at almost 250.000 t CO2eq in 2020 (7%of the City’s overall annual emissions). The study derives policy implications aimed at achieving along‐term shift towards climate‐friendlier, low‐emission transport in Barcelona, namely how torecover lost demand in public transport and seize the opportunity that the crisis brings for reform byfurther reducing road traffic and establishing a 'cycling culture' in Barcelona, as already achieved inother European cities.

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Effect of Community Road Infrastructure, Socio-Demographic and Street Pattern in Promoting Walking as Sustainable Transportation Mode

The Open Transportation Journal ◽

10.2174/1874447801913010025 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 25-34

Author(s):

Shakil Mohammad Rifaat ◽

Mosabbir Pasha ◽

Richard Tay ◽

Alex De Barros

Keyword(s):

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Greenhouse Gas Emission ◽

Sustainable Transportation ◽

Community Level ◽

Gas Emission ◽

Road Infrastructure ◽

Traffic Demand ◽

Street Pattern ◽

The City

Background: Traffic demand is growing worldwide and the increased carbon emission from transport and travel activities is contributing to greenhouse gas emission and climate change. As the oil and gas capital of Canada, the city of Calgary has a very high carbon footprint per population and the reduction of automobile use is an important policy goal for the city. Walking, a part of active transportation promotes sustainable transportation initiative by reducing greenhouse gas emission. To encourage walking, favorable walking environment should be ensured which largely depends on street pattern and connectivity. However, the effect of street pattern on walking at community level was not explored much in previous studies, particularly at rapidly expanding city such as Calgary’s context. Aims and Objectives: The study identifies the effects of different neighborhood design and planning factors associated with the share of walking in work trips while controlling for differences in social economic characteristics of the neighborhood. Methods: A linear regression model was developed using community-level data from the 2011 census and the road infrastructure data of Calgary. Results: Our study finds that different street patterns and types of land use, length of train tracks, number of train stations and number of schools have significant effect on walking. Conclusion: Thus, different neighbourhood street patterns and land uses should be considered in the development of new communities for promoting active and sustainable transportation.

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