Book ‘transforming urban transport: the ethics, politics, and practices of sustainable mobility’ review

Transport ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-216
Author(s):  
Eric Bruun
Author(s):  
Roberts Pūgulis ◽  
◽  
Līga Bieziņa ◽  
Raimonds Ernšteins ◽  
◽  
...  

Cycling and general sustainable mobility has become a topical issue around Europe, and gradually also in Latvia, including Valmiera – a medium size town, which is a research-base for this study where the governance and development of the municipal cycling infrastructure is analysed. The rapid growth of cycling in Valmiera not only highlights some deficiencies in urban infrastructure developments, but also reveals the management problems: the expectations and needs of users of different means of transportation and also pedestrians are not met. Looking towards solving various cycling development issues, it is necessary, first of all, to develop an understanding of system’s approach and the systemic governance of the cycling infrastructure. The urban transport/mobility system must be developed as a whole, integrating cycling mobility in it as an independently and continuously developing component, promoting a process of cooperation between all parties involved. Thus, to facilitate the cycling mobility of inhabitants in Valmiera, the involvement/participation of all the interested parties shall be pro-actively communicated – informed, educated/trained, pro-cycling behaviour encouraged. During this integrative case study, both quantitative and qualitative research methods were applied complementary: analysis of documents, infrastructure observations in the town with photo documentation, survey of inhabitants, also in-depth semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions. Additionally, a participatory observation was conducted through participation in cycling activities, forums, working groups, etc., elaborating suggestions for the municipal planning document - Transport Infrastructure Development Concept of Valmiera.


Author(s):  
L. Ros-McDonnell ◽  
M.V. De-la-Fuente ◽  
D. Ros-McDonnell ◽  
M. Cardós

<p>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.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 2543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yavuz Duvarcı ◽  
Tan Yigitcanlar

Building underwater tube tunnel crossings to ease the urban congestion problems has become a popular approach for many cities across the globe. London, New York, Istanbul, Hamburg, Sydney and Brisbane are among these cities. However, the effectiveness and externalities of these expensive mega urban infrastructures have also been questioned widely among urban, transport and environmental planning scholars. Given the international popularity of the topic, this study places a new tube tunnel crossings project from Izmir, Turkey under the microscope. In this heuristic simulation study, policy-on scenarios were tested to determine possible impacts of the underwater tube tunnel-crossing project. The traffic impacts are discussed using simulations assigning the initial origin–destination data. The results of the study revealed that, given the two locations, outer and inner locations over the dagger-shape bay, the capacity increments on the bridge links and the links around the periphery highway did not bring any effective solutions beyond some minor improvements. The findings disclosed that the ineffectiveness of the tube tunnel crossing might be due to the excessive congestion happening all over the downtown area, which clogs the passageways to the bridge. The paper highlights the limitations of the tube tunnel-crossing project, emphasises the need for comprehensive investigations before committing to the project and advocates the emphasis to be actually given for sustainable mobility.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 6067 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Damidavičius ◽  
Marija Burinskienė ◽  
Jurgita Antuchevičienė

An increasing number of recent discussions have focused on the need for designing transport systems in consonance with the importance of the environment, thus promoting investment in the growth of non-motorized transport infrastructure. Under such conditions, the demand for implementing the most effective infrastructure measures has a profoundly positive impact, and requires the least possible financial and human resources. The development of the concept of sustainable mobility puts emphasis on the integrated planning of transport systems, and pays major attention to the expansion of non-motorized and public transport, and different sharing systems, as well as to effective traffic management involving intelligent transport systems. The development of transport infrastructure requires massive investment, and hence the proper use of mobility measures is one of the most important objectives for the rational planning of sustainable transport systems. To achieve this established goal, this article examines a compiled set of mobility measures and identifies the significance of the preferred tools, which involve sustainable mobility experts. The paper also applies multicriteria decision making methods in assessing urban transport systems and their potential in terms of sustainable mobility. Multicriteria decision making methods have been successfully used for assessing the effectiveness of sustainable transport systems, and for comparing them between cities. The proposed universal evaluation model is applied to similar types of cities. The article explores the adaptability of the model by assessing big Lithuanian cities.


Author(s):  
Pragati Jain ◽  
Prerna Jain ◽  
Roopesh Kaushik

Sustainable mobility demands the inclusion of environment, social and economic sustainabil-ity. Public transport especially the bus system can be explored to fulfill these three sub goals. Globally the uses of personal vehicles have noticed an exponential growth owing to high per capita income and not up to the mark standards of public transport system. The emphasis on the requirement to probe significant questions while designing urban transport policies moti-vates this study to investigate what an ideal public bus system should be like, in the eyes of, those who either do not use or have shifted from public to private mode of travel. A survey on 1554 respondents is conducted to identify the various attributes that the public desire for, of a public bus system. These 12 items or attributes are clubbed into four categories using factor analysis. The logit regression run on the binary outcome "Shift" variable of opting or not opt-ing for public bus system with the four predicator variables (institutional, personnel, personal and qualitative) obtained using factor analysis shows positive association of improvement in these predicators to the outcome of opting for public transport.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 3528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Antolín ◽  
Borja Alonso ◽  
Rubén Cordera ◽  
Luigi dell’Olio

This article presents a behavioural analysis of tourists visiting a leisure area in the north of Spain to evaluate their reaction when faced with a series of tariffs and alternative transport modes to estimate potential income for reinvestment in sustainable mobility policies. The active involvement of the different groups affected by the changes has led to a series of policies able to generate income for financing a new urban transport service, park and ride installations and their associated vehicles. These changes resulted in a noteworthy improvement in the quality of life of the local residents and an improved, less intense tourist experience.


2021 ◽  
pp. 157-166
Author(s):  
Hans-Jörg Dennig ◽  
Adrian Burri ◽  
Philipp Ganz

AbstractThis paper describes the technical features of the light electric vehicle (L2e-category) named BICAR. This specially designed vehicle is an all-in-one emissions-free micro-mobility solution providing a cost-effective and sustainable mobility system while supporting the transition towards a low carbon society (smart and sustainable city concept). The BICAR represents part of a multimodal system, complementing public transport with comfort and safety, relieving inner-city congestion and solving the “first and last mile” issue. The BICAR is the lightest and smallest three-wheel vehicle with weather protection. Due to the space-saving design, six to nine BICARS will fit into a single standard parking space. Safety is increased by an elevated driving position and a tilting mechanism when cornering. The BICAR achieves a range of 40–60 km depending on the battery package configuration in urban transport at a speed of 45 km/h. It features a luggage storage place and exchangeable, rechargeable batteries. The BICAR can be driven without a helmet thanks to the safety belt system, which is engineered for street approved tests. The BICAR has an integrated telematic box connected to the vehicle electronics and communicating with the dedicated mobile application, through which the BICAR can be geo-localised, reserved, locked/unlocked and remotely maintained.


2020 ◽  
pp. 154-184
Author(s):  
Paweł Gałka ◽  
Krzysztof Grzelec ◽  
Katarzyna Hebel ◽  
Eamonn Judge ◽  
Olgierd Wyszomirski

The assumptions and goals of sustainable urban mob ility are defined in global and national documents, for example, the United Nations 2030 Agenda and in the Transport Policy of the State of Poland for 2006–2025. Achieving these goals is a long process. Tools and actions have been identified that play a fundamental role in achieving sustainable mobility, and various methods of measuring the effectiveness of these activities have been presented and compared. The article presents the following research hypotheses: achieving the goals of sustainable mobility through the development of the public transport offer requires the use of modern management methods, it is necessary to identify the main attributes of public transport that determine the use of this type of transport and to finance those elements of the transport offer that correspond to these attributes. The aim of the article is to assess the role of public transport as an element of sustainable mobility and to explain the reasons for unsatisfactory policy effects in Poland. Analysing the effectiveness of actions and tools used in Polish cities in achieving the goals of sustainable mobility, the processes of management in public transport and shaping the attributes of transport services and technical solutions were selected for the analysis. The analysis was carried out on the example of selected Polish cities. On the basis of the conducted research, the authors formulated conclusions: the idea of sustainable mobility development is an element of the transport policy of modern European cities, achieving sustainable development requires changes in the structure of urban transport, effective implementation of a sustainable mobility policy leads to changes in transport behaviour, the condition for increasing the share of public transport is to increase the attractiveness of its services. Detailed conclusions were defined in relation to selected Polish cities, in particular Gdańsk and Gdynia. The use of public transport by people who can travel by car can be increase by affecting the freedom to use passenger cars in cities through traffic and parking restrictions. The most effective tool that limits the use of private cars turns out to be parking fees in the city. Conclusions from the conducted research allowed us to confirm the research hypotheses of the article.


Author(s):  
Hui Bi ◽  
Zhirui Ye ◽  
Yi Zhang

Although metro systems are established in many Asian cities including Chengdu, they have yet to cover every corner of a city. Understanding the transfer behavior of passengers can provide insight into achieving efficient and sustainable urban transport systems. Combining shared mobility programs with metro to improve the weaknesses of traditional feeder modes is viewed as the most promising line of business in sustainable transportation for the near future. Therefore, this study aims to comprehend the factors affecting the usage regularity of shared mobility by deepening the knowledge on endogenous and exogenous effects, and integrating two modes, namely bike-sharing and ridesourcing. Two systems are cross-compared, first in respect of their travel characteristics. Then, a binary logistic model is employed to capture the influences of trip characteristics and travel environment characteristics on their usage frequency. Researchers found that trip distance is significantly associated with users’ mode options, indicating that bike-sharing and ridesourcing mainly serve short-distance and long-distance transfer users, respectively, although some users may be confused which feeder mode to choose for the journeys of 2 km to 4 km. There were also meteorological and temporal influences, with the competition and complementation of multiple shared mobility feeder modes being likely to change under extreme weather conditions, during peak hours, or on weekends. Besides, metro-shared mobility users value the accessibility of two kinds of transport service, which is affected by the metro station and its surrounding built environment. This study and the proposed policy implications are helpful for embracing a sustainable mobility design from general optimum.


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