Assessing the Performance of Modal Interchange for Ensuring Seamless and Sustainable Mobility in European Cities

In the European Union, more than 70% of the population lives in urban areas. Achieving more efficient and low-carbon mobility is crucial to ensuring urban systems are sustainable and tackling important challenges, such as reduction of CO2 emissions, air and noise pollution, and traffic congestion. Identifying effective strategies and design solutions that boost multimodal mobility and effective interchange among different sustainable means of transport can be a significant contribution in this area. This paper presents an easy-to-use methodology to assess the performance of policy measures and design solutions-oriented to foster modal interchange, with special regard to the configuration of the interchange hubs. The methodology is based on identifying key factors necessary to ensure an efficient multimodal interchange and the different types of interchanges that are frequently present in the urban realm. By grouping the key factors into nine different domains, and by weighing the key factors in relation to their importance, the methodology creates a decision support system to assess the performance of the current interchange, as well as of different planning and design scenarios. This methodology has been developed in the framework of the Interreg Europe MATCH-UP project and is conceived to support both designers and decision-makers whenever they have to reorganise existing transport hubs and policies, or design and plan new ones.

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Climate Change Mitigation Through Smart Environmental Monitoring of the Urban Ecosystem in Insular Touristic Cities: Experience from Rethymno and Madeira

10.1007/978-3-030-73715-3_8 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 129-147

Author(s):

Maria Aryblia ◽

Lúcio Quintal ◽

Μiguel Ribeiro ◽

Nikolaos Sifakis ◽

Stavroula Tournaki ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Air Pollution ◽

Environmental Monitoring ◽

Traffic Congestion ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Environmental Benefits ◽

Monitoring Systems ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Horizon 2020

AbstractCities, and general urban areas, contribute critically to climate change because of the GHGs related to traffic congestion, fossil fuel consumption, noise and air pollution. Air pollution, despite the noteworthy improvements during the last decades, still plays a significant role in the quality of living in European cities as it causes damages to health and ecosystems, thus making urgent the immoderate need of diminishing it. Within the Horizon 2020 CIVITAS DESTINATIONS project, six European island cities, which are highly attractive destinations for tourists worldwide, implemented various sustainable mobility measures. Among them, Funchal, Madeira-Portugal, and Rethymno, Crete-Greece, implemented two different environmental monitoring systems to measure and calculate a predetermined set of indicators, capable of estimating the environmental benefits in transport, economy, society, energy, and the environment. The monitoring systems were installed in specific sites all around these two cities, aiming, through the integrated sensors, to collect environmental data related to transport load, such as environmental indexes (temperature, humidity, noise) and air pollutants (CO2, CO, NOx, SO2, PM). The collection of critical and reliable data offers the opportunity for an effective evaluation of the overall performance of the implemented measures toward sustainable, environmentally friendly, and low-carbon mobility policies.

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Development of a biking index for measuring Mediterranean cities mobility

International Journal of Production Management and Engineering ◽

10.4995/ijpme.2020.10834 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 21

Author(s):

L. Ros-McDonnell ◽

M.V. De-la-Fuente ◽

D. Ros-McDonnell ◽

M. Cardós

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Field Data ◽

Survey Methodology ◽

Urban Environments ◽

Urban Transport ◽

The European Union ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Mobility Index ◽

Long Time ◽

Motorized Vehicles

The European Union, its member states and local authorities have been working for long time on the design of solutions for future sustainable mobility. The promotion of a sustainable and affordable urban transport contemplates the bicycle as a mean of transport. The reasons for analysing the cycling mobility in urban areas, has its origin in the confrontation with motorized vehicles, as a sustainable response to the environment. In this context of sustainable mobility, the research team has studied the use of bicycles in Mediterranean cities, specifically in coastal tourist areas. The present work shows the development of a mobility index oriented to the bicycle, transport that competes with the private vehicle. By means of a survey methodology, the research group proceeded to collect field data and the subsequent analysis of them, for the development of a mobility index adapted to bicycle mobility, and with possibilities to adapt to urban environments.

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Situation Analysis of Policies for Electric Mobility Development: Experience from Five European Regions

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12072935 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (7) ◽

pp. 2935

Author(s):

Kamile Petrauskiene ◽

Jolanta Dvarioniene ◽

Giedrius Kaveckis ◽

Daina Kliaugaite ◽

Julie Chenadec ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Qualitative Methodology ◽

High Energy ◽

The European Union ◽

European Regions ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Charging Infrastructure ◽

Energy Demands ◽

Information And Communication

The decarbonization of the mobility and energy sector is one of the major necessary trends for achieving targets set for the European Union (EU) in the 2020 and 2030 climate and energy frameworks. Two key technologies which offer great potential for climate change mitigation are electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energies (REs). Thus, there is the need for innovative and stable policies in order to favor these technologies. The purpose of the study is to identify and compare features of policies for the integration of EVs, REs, and information and communication technology (ICT). This study uses an integrated Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT), and Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal (PESTEL) qualitative methodology in order to show different policies and initiatives, related to e-mobility, RE and ICT, collected from five European regions. This research provides discernments to the EVs and RE challenges, such as the lack of capacity to deal with high energy demands or limited EV-charging infrastructure. On the contrary, a high percentage of REs share, raising climate change awareness, and decreasing EV prices which are great opportunities for the whole EU. Such insights encourage policymakers and other groups of interest to improve their RE and mobility policies, which could lead to effective sustainable mobility systems in urban areas.

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On the Environmental and Social Sustainability of Urban Bus Transport Practices: The EU Case

10.20944/preprints201812.0269.v1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Cristina López ◽

Rocío Ruíz-Benítez ◽

Carmen Vargas-Machuca

Keyword(s):

Traffic Congestion ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Business Models ◽

Life Quality ◽

Hierarchical Structures ◽

Social Sustainability ◽

Urban Environments ◽

The European Union ◽

Urban Bus ◽

Bus Transport

Logistics in urban areas are currently suffering a radical transformation due to increasingly population concentration and the massive use of cars as the preferred transport mode. These issues have resulted in higher pollution levels in urban environments and traffic congestion impacting the world globally. Facilitating the use of sustainable transport modes is widely regarded as a necessity to cope with these adverse effects on citizens’ life quality. Hence, some regions, as the European Union, are encouraging bus transport firms to make their business models more environmentally and socially sustainable. The aim of this research is thus to explore how practices adopted by urban bus companies can improve cities’ sustainability. With this in mind, a combined Importance Performance Analysis (IPA)-Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was applied. In this way, both environmental and social sustainability effects of developed practices were represented through hierarchical structures separately. Subsequently, importance and performance ratings of practices in each sustainability dimension were estimated, and thus two IPA grids were generated. These grids support managers in the establishment of more effective action plans to improve logistics sustainability in cities. Findings also provide guidance to governments on the practices that should be promoted in future urban mobility plans.

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Concept for shallow geothermal opportunity mapping

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-19146 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

David Boon ◽

Gareth Farr ◽

Laura Williams ◽

Stephen Thorpe ◽

Ashley Patton ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Local Development ◽

Flow Direction ◽

Water Discharge ◽

Heat Pumps ◽

Low Carbon ◽

The European Union ◽

Heating And Cooling ◽

Geological Conditions ◽

Combining Data

Reaching Net Zero CO2 emissions by 2050 will require rapid and wide-scale deployment of renewable heating technologies in rural and urban areas, including open and closed loop type production wells and borehole heat exchangers, supplying individual, shared, and centralised heat pumps as part of wider district heating and cooling grids. &#160;Ground and groundwater conditions are naturally variable and are a key factor in system viability, capital cost and long-term performance.&#160; Engineering approaches for heating and cooling of buildings should be optimised for the local thermo-geological conditions to avoid system interference and thermal degradation.&#160; Sustainable use of shallow geothermal systems can be achieved by adopting an environmental stewardship approach, integrating geological information within energy master plans, taking full advantage of subsurface data visualisation technology and integrated planning and modelling tools.We present a method for creating a digital shallow geothermal opportunities map - mostly aimed at moderate- to expert-skill level geoenvironmetal and energy&#160;consultants, planners and civil engineers. &#160;The output is a digital 1:50 000 scale equivalent&#160;thematic map, that provides a synthesis of available technical information by combining data such as 3D superficial geological model data - delimiting aquifer and non-aquifer boundaries, groundwater levels and temperatures, aquifer thickness, flow direction, possibly with inset tables summarising groundwater chemistry and key physical properties of the main geological units such typical thermal conductivity.&#160; Built infrastructure that could constrain drilling locations, as well as potential water discharge points and open water heat source and storage opportunities, such as sewers, rivers, canals, docks, and lakes, might also be included in the map.&#160; Local development plans and heat demand mapping data could then be integrated with the opportunities map to identify and prioritise districts that would benefit from more detailed viability studies for conversion of fossil fuel heating systems to low carbon heating and cooling technologies.This project has received funding from the European Union&#8217;s H2020 research and innovation programme under the GeoERA MUSE project &#8211; Managing Urban Shallow Geothermal Energy.

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On the Environmental and Social Sustainability of Technological Innovations in Urban Bus Transport: The EU Case

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11051413 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 1413 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Cristina López ◽

Rocío Ruíz-Benítez ◽

Carmen Vargas-Machuca

Keyword(s):

Traffic Congestion ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Business Models ◽

Life Quality ◽

Hierarchical Structures ◽

Social Sustainability ◽

Technological Innovations ◽

The European Union ◽

Urban Bus ◽

Bus Transport

Logistics in urban areas are currently suffering a radical transformation due to increasing population concentration and the massive use of cars as the preferred transport mode. These issues have resulted in higher pollution levels in urban environments and traffic congestion, impacting the world globally. Facilitating the use of sustainable transport modes is widely regarded as a necessity to cope with these adverse effects on citizens’ life quality. Hence, some regions, such as the European Union, are encouraging bus transport firms to make their business models more environmentally and socially sustainable. The aim of this research is thus to explore how technological innovations adopted by urban bus companies can improve cities’ sustainability. With this in mind, a combined Importance Performance Analysis (IPA)–Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was applied. In this way, their environmental and social sustainability effects were separately represented through hierarchical structures. Subsequently, the importance and performance ratings of technological innovations in each sustainability dimension were estimated, and thus two IPA grids were generated. These grids support managers in the establishment of more effective action plans to improve logistics sustainability in cities. The findings also provide guidance to governments on the technological innovations that should be promoted in future urban mobility plans.

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City Logistics as an Imperative Smart City Mechanism: Scrutiny of Clustered EU27 Capitals

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13073641 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (7) ◽

pp. 3641

Author(s):

Filip Škultéty ◽

Dominika Beňová ◽

Jozef Gnap

Keyword(s):

Traffic Congestion ◽

Smart City ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Point Of View ◽

Transport Infrastructure ◽

City Logistics ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Capital Cities ◽

Cluster Analytic ◽

Efficient Distribution

In large urban agglomerations, various logistical problems arise due to high population density and deficient transport infrastructure. City logistics involves the efficient distribution of freight transport in urban areas and approaches to mitigate environmental impacts and traffic congestion. This paper aims to use a two-step cluster analytic approach to segmentation of EU27 capital cities based on their city logistics performance. To obtain primary outcomes, the log-likelihood measure in SPSS Statistics was used. The results can be used to identify the development and implementation of logistics measures in capitals across the EU. In addition to clustering, the statistical analysis evaluates the position of investigated cities concerning traffic congestions, and from an environmental point of view, the carbon dioxide produced from transport. The scrutiny delivers practical outlooks on how clustering can be undertaken and proves how the clusters can be used to plan city logistics and supply chain management. Finally, the paper deals with smart city indices from the perspective of sustainable mobility and examines its correlation with city logistics.

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Promotion of Electric Mobility in the European Union—Overview of Project PROMETEUS from the Perspective of Cohesion through Synergistic Cooperation on the Example of the Catching-Up Region

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13031545 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 1545

Author(s):

František Pollák ◽

Josef Vodák ◽

Jakub Soviar ◽

Peter Markovič ◽

Gianluca Lentini ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Electric Vehicles ◽

Action Plan ◽

Policy Instruments ◽

Electric Mobility ◽

Infrastructure Development ◽

Low Carbon ◽

The European Union ◽

Sustainable Mobility ◽

Electric Cars ◽

Structural Funds

This project report presents the rationale and the first results as regards the ongoing learning process of the PROMETEUS (PROMotion of EmobiliTy in EU regionS) project, co-financed by the Interreg Europe program, in the context of EU policies and programs dedicated to the promotion of sustainable mobility, and electric mobility in particular. Electric mobility, and in general low-carbon mobility, is one of the main targets of the European Union’s policies dedicated to a green transition. Despite continuous efforts, the number of electric cars in circulation remains low and the objectives of expanding the market for such vehicles by 2030 are still far from being fulfilled. Up until 2018, the share of electric vehicles was in fact only 1.5% of total car sales in the EU. Specifically, it has been noted that an increase in the uptake of electric vehicles in Europe is hampered by the presence of three main barriers: affordability, infrastructure availability, and lack of investments. In this context, project PROMETEUS has aimed at tackling the lacunae in the availability of infrastructures for a transition towards electric mobility in the partnership’s regions, namely, Carinthia in Austria, Castilla y León in Spain, Lazio in Italy, Malta, and Prešov in Slovakia, and at countering low awareness in the public through the improvement of policy instruments linked to structural funds. In order to approach and clarify the process of improvement of those policy instruments, we have summarized and presented the reference results and outputs from the Action Plans across the partners. Moreover, the report discusses in detail the output of the regional Action Plan of the one of project partners—the Prešov region, as the form of a model example—as the initial situation in terms of infrastructure development in the region posing as the biggest challenge for the project. Managerial as well as research summaries can be helpful in the implementation of similar projects; in the continuous improvement of policy instruments; and, last but not least, in the formulation of new challenges to improve awareness of sustainable forms of transport.

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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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Modeling the Internalization of External Costs of Transport

Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board ◽

10.3141/1576-12 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 1576 (1) ◽

pp. 93-98 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Margaret M. O’Mahony ◽

Kieran J. Kirwan ◽

Sean McGrath

Keyword(s):

Traffic Congestion ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Travel Demand ◽

Capital City ◽

External Costs ◽

The European Union ◽

Peak Period ◽

Function Type ◽

Trinity College Dublin ◽

Regulatory Policies

Increases in traffic congestion and pollution levels in urban areas in Europe have resulted in the need to develop reliable and transferable methods of assessing the environmental and social effects of transport pricing and other regulatory policies. To achieve this, it is necessary to quantify the marginal social costs of transport as a function of travel demand and then to obtain the optimum marginal social cost by maximization of utility subject to budget constraints. The work conducted by Trinity College, Dublin, on a project (TRENEN) funded by the European Union JOULE II Non-Nuclear Energy Program is described. The project involved the development and calibration of an optimization model, the TRENEN model, based on welfare economics to address fundamental issues relating to the external costs of transport. The determination of the optimum function type used to represent the transport demand–delay relationship (which was obtained using an existing four-stage network model) for input to the TRENEN model is described. The TRENEN model is quite different from network modeling in that it is fundamentally macrolevel in its approach and works in an economic framework rather than at a traffic network level. Also discussed is a calibration of the TRENEN model for Dublin, the capital city of Ireland. Dublin currently experiences high levels of traffic congestion, particularly in the morning peak period, resulting from a heavy demand for car travel and the poor level of service associated with public transport. The possibility of using the TRENEN model, which addresses the issue of “social equilibrium” at a macrolevel, in conjunction with the more traditional “network equilibrium” approach used by traditional four-stage microsimulation modeling techniques, is discussed.

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