Virtual reality as a new tool for transport data collection

2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Laura Agudelo-Vélez ◽  
Iván Sarmiento-Ordosgoitia ◽  
Jorge Córdoba-Maquilón

Transport studies that adopt complex analyses present methodological challenges that lead to the use of innovative techniques to address the limitations of traditional methods. In the Latin American context, people consider security as a relevant variable in their daily lives. Thus, when people travel around the city and choose a mode of transport, secu-rity becomes an important factor and should therefore be included in transport studies. However, the definition of security in terms of transport in the Colombian context remains unclear. Therefore, we examined the security percep-tion effect on transport mode choice by addressing security as a latent variable consisting of three elements: environ-ment, subject and transport mode. We proposed the use of virtual reality (VR) to recreate travel routes and offer partic-ipants a scenario of choice closer to the natural conditions of a trip. The participants were provided routes in the form of immersive 3D videos recreating natural trip conditions to identify their choices and travel behaviour. Recordings were made of daily scenarios and existing urban environments portraying real and active modes of transport, giving respondents an almost-natural experience. The use of 360-degree immersive videos offers a multisensory experience allowing both the capture of socioeconomic and travel information and the collection of journey perception. The experiment evaluated two environments in Medellín, Colombia (secure (E1) and insecure (E2)) and studied the effects of lighting conditions (day (D) and night (N)). A total of four videos (E1D, E1N, E2D and E2N) depicting six transport modes in tandem were assessed by 92 participants from Medellín and Bogotá, Colombia. We found that environment-associated security perception varies depending on the time of the journey (day/night) and one’s familiarity with the environment. The research results position VR as a tool that offers high potential to support transport studies. We found that people’s movements, gestures and expressions while participating in the VR experiments resembled what was expected from journeys in reality. VR constitutes a relevant tool for transport studies, as it allows for an assessment of active transport mode perceptions. It prevents participants from being exposed to the risk associated with travel to specific places and carries out several routes in different transport modes even when participants cannot or have never undertaken journeys in the modes under assessment.

2022 ◽  
pp. 51-66
Author(s):  
Simona Šinko ◽  
Bojan Rupnik ◽  
Roman Gumzej

It seems that the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in December 2019, will have longer and more profound consequences on our lives than initially foreseen. Among the most obvious are everyday decisions about the mode of transport. From related research, it can be seen that the most affected transport mode is public transport, which had the greatest decline. The reason for lesser use of public transport is in complete closure of public transport in some parts of the world. However, where this measure has not been applied, the reason for the reduction is people's fear of infection when using public transport or any shared modes of transportation. The fear stems from the fact that the COVID-19 virus is spreading extremely fast in densely populated rooms. All these changes are affecting the changes in city mobility. Related research shows a decrease of mobility in general and an increase in the use of individual modes of transportation. Distinct changes can be observed in different environments as compared to previous travel behaviour.


2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Dijst ◽  
Tom de Jong ◽  
Jan Ritsema van Eck

Research into the effects of spatial configuration on the use of transport modes has to date dominantly been based on analyses of actual travel behaviour or prediction of future transport mode choices. However, in this research it is not made clear what choice opportunities were available for travel behaviour of the various population categories, given their desired activities and time–space opportunities. The authors describe a time–space theoretical and methodological framework based on the concept of action spaces, within which the choice opportunities of different types of households of various areas can be analysed. On the basis of a pilot study among the residents of a suburban neighbourhood in a Netherlands new town, the time–space opportunities they have to use alternative transport modes other than the car are brought into the frame. It is shown that residents have more time–space opportunities to make use of existing environmentally friendly, transport modes than had been expected. The possibilities differ between types of action spaces and types of households. Some implications for policymaking are discussed. The authors state that policymakers should be more sensitive to interpersonal differences in accessibility.


Author(s):  
Usama Bilal ◽  
◽  
Philipp Hessel ◽  
Carolina Perez-Ferrer ◽  
Yvonne L. Michael ◽  
...  

AbstractThe concept of a so-called urban advantage in health ignores the possibility of heterogeneity in health outcomes across cities. Using a harmonized dataset from the SALURBAL project, we describe variability and predictors of life expectancy and proportionate mortality in 363 cities across nine Latin American countries. Life expectancy differed substantially across cities within the same country. Cause-specific mortality also varied across cities, with some causes of death (unintentional and violent injuries and deaths) showing large variation within countries, whereas other causes of death (communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional, cancer, cardiovascular disease and other noncommunicable diseases) varied substantially between countries. In multivariable mixed models, higher levels of education, water access and sanitation and less overcrowding were associated with longer life expectancy, a relatively lower proportion of communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional deaths and a higher proportion of deaths from cancer, cardiovascular disease and other noncommunicable diseases. These results highlight considerable heterogeneity in life expectancy and causes of death across cities of Latin America, revealing modifiable factors that could be amenable to urban policies aimed toward improving urban health in Latin America and more generally in other urban environments.


Author(s):  
Pablo Gobira ◽  
Antônio Mozelli

This paper aims to report the experience and challenges of the research group Laboratory of Front Poetics (LabFront, CNPq/UEMG) in exhibiting an immersive virtual reality installation during events and festivals of digital arts in Brazil. In this article, questions are raised regarding traditional exhibition processes and those where digital technologies are used. Although our focus is on the Brazilian context, similar difficulties and problems in exhibition design can be seen in other places, such as Latin American and European countries. We will base the discussion on our experience of exhibiting Olhe para você (2016) [Look at yourself], an immersive virtual reality work developed by one of the teams of the research group LabFront.


2022 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Alan Both ◽  
Lucy Gunn ◽  
Carl Higgs ◽  
Melanie Davern ◽  
Afshin Jafari ◽  
...  

Confronted with rapid urbanization, population growth, traffic congestion, and climate change, there is growing interest in creating cities that support active transport modes including walking, cycling, or public transport. The ‘30 minute city’, where employment is accessible within 30 min by active transport, is being pursued in some cities to reduce congestion and foster local living. This paper examines the spatial relationship between employment, the skills of residents, and transport opportunities, to answer three questions about Australia’s 21 largest cities: (1) What percentage of workers currently commute to their workplace within 30 min? (2) If workers were to shift to an active transport mode, what percent could reach their current workplace within 30 min? and (3) If it were possible to relocate workers closer to their employment or relocate employment closer to their home, what percentage could reach work within 30 min by each mode? Active transport usage in Australia is low, with public transport, walking, and cycling making up 16.8%, 2.8%, and 1.1% respectively of workers’ commutes. Cycling was found to have the most potential for achieving the 30 min city, with an estimated 29.5% of workers able to reach their current workplace were they to shift to cycling. This increased to 69.1% if workers were also willing and able to find a similar job closer to home, potentially reducing commuting by private motor vehicle from 79.3% to 30.9%.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Dolores Tierney

This introduction to a Special Issue of Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinema charts the shift in Alejandro González Iñárritu's directorial persona from transnational auteur to mainstream figure over the course of his six feature films and virtual reality installation: Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Biutiful (2010), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), The Revenant (2015) and the installation Carne y arena (Virtually Present, Physically invisible) (2017). It argues that this shift into a (predominantly Anglo) mainstream is reflected in the different ways in which his last names (apellidos) are used, abbreviated or even excised altogether, and in the differing approaches to him as auteur employed by the authors of the different articles, but that Iñárritu’s persona and creative collaborators continue to be primarily determined by his Mexican and Latin American identity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-90
Author(s):  
Lizardo Vargas-Bianchi ◽  
Marta Mensa

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect on brand name recall in advertisements with varying levels of female sexual objectification content among young millennials and the effect of distraction on this recall effort. The question arises whether this group evokes those brands that appear in advertisements using different levels of objectification content. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a correlational design that includes two studies with different groups of subjects: an assessment of perceived female sexual objectification levels in a set of ads and a quasi-experimental study that used the assessed perceived levels of female objectification and brand name short-term recall scores of those ads, with and without the intervention of an attention distractor. Findings Results suggest that female sexual objectification content exerts a limited influence on brand name recall between participants. In addition, it is not men who remember brand names from ads using sexual objectified images, but young women. Research limitations/implications The study had an exploratory scope and used a small non-probabilistic sample. Subjects belong to a cultural context of Western world developing economy, and thus perceived female objectification may vary between different cultural settings. Results refer to graphic advertisements, though this cohort is exposed to other audiovisual content platforms. Originality/value Several studies have addressed female objectification in advertising and media, but few focused on young Latin American audiences and its impact on the recollection of advertised brands. Brand name retention and awareness is still a relevant variable that the advertising industry takes in account as one of several predictors toward buying decisions. Even less research has been made on Latin American social and cultural contexts.


Author(s):  
Michael Humphrey ◽  
Shahadat Hossain

Slums have generated renewed interest among scholars in the wake of rapid urbanization in the South and the growing incidence of urban poverty worldwide. This gave rise to the expression “expanding urban slums,” which refers to a phenomenon occurring in the Global South associated with “hyper-urbanization”— rapid urbanization beyond the capacity of the state or city to plan for, to provide services and housing for, to regulate urban environments or regulate the poor. The UN Challenge of Slums report describes two kinds of slums: “slums of hope” and “slums of despair.” Slums of hope are “progressing” settlements, characterized by new, normally self-built structures, usually illegal (e.g. squatters) that are in, or have recently been through, a process of development, consolidation and improvement. Slums of despair refer to “declining” neighborhoods, in which environmental conditions and domestic services are undergoing a process of degeneration. Earlier studies of slums differ from contemporary research in terms of the extent to which megaslums are emerging as a permanent feature of megacities. Contemporary studies of the “expanding slum” can be conceptualized as about different aspects of informalization of urban social, economic, and political processes. The literature on urban informality and informalization indicates that slums are not excluded spaces but integrated on different terms. Scholars must begin to develop more nuanced theories of urbanism in a globalizing world, and they can use the “gray zones” of Latin American cities as a starting point.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-180
Author(s):  
Niyazudeen Kamarudeen ◽  
Balan Sundarakani ◽  
Ioannis Manikas

Metro service operations have become challenging in modern urban environments due to the dynamics of population, service levels, accuracy and other operational issues. This research applies the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model combined with the ARENA model simulation to examine the service performance in the Dubai Metro. The proposed approach takes into consideration the real-time flows of metro service operations and simulates the passengers’ service time in selected terminals. The researchers measure the actual time spent by passengers and estimate various possible scenarios as outcome. The researchers assessed the average time spent in the system and the performance improvement as a visualized outcome, with suggestions for improvements, such as: onboard card recharge, automatic checkout using radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems, integration of systems using the Internet of things (IOT) and blockchain and a dedicated lane system. The proposed recommendations have the potential to contribute to service performance improvement of the metro rail, as Dubai plans for its operational expansion process towards Expo 2020. This research methodology and these results can be extended to metro service operations of other urban centres, to better understand passengers’ behaviour in the future. In view of this, the research contributes to both the theory and practice of travel behaviour in the metro transportation service.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2912 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jairo Ortega ◽  
Jamil Hamadneh ◽  
Domokos Esztergár-Kiss ◽  
János Tóth

The preferences of travelers determines the utility of daily activity plans. Decision-makers can affect the preference of travelers when they force private car users to use park-and-ride (P&R) facilities as a way of decreasing traffic in city centers. The P&R system has been shown to be effective in reducing uninterrupted increases in traffic congestion, especially in city centers. Therefore, the impacts of P&R on travel behavior and the daily activity plans of both worker and shopper travelers were studied in this paper. Moreover, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are a promising technology for the coming decade. A simulation of the AV as part of a multimodal system, when the P&R system was integrated in the daily activity plans, was carried out to determine the required AV fleet size needed to fulfill a certain demand and to study the impacts of AVs on the behavior of travelers (trip time and distance). Specifically, a group of travelers, who use private cars as their transport mode, was studied, and certain modifications to their daily activity plans, including P&R facilities and changing their transport mode, were introduced. Using the MATSim open-source tool, four scenarios were simulated based on the mentioned modifications. The four scenarios included (1) a simulation of the existing transport modes of the travelers, (2) a simulation of their daily activity plans when their transport modes were changed to AVs, (3) a simulation of the travelers, when P&R facilities were included in their activity chain plans, and (4) a simulation of their daily activity plans, when both P&R and AVs were included in their activity chain plans. The result showed that using the P&R system increased overall travel time, compared with using a private car. The results also demonstrated that using AVs as a replacement for conventional cars reduced travel time. In conclusion, the impact of P&R and AVs on the travel behavior of certain travelers was evaluated in this paper.


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