scholarly journals Challenges of Low Carbon Public Transport Systems in the Arabian Gulf City: Case of Muscat, Oman

Author(s):  
Elnazir Ramadan

The Arabian Gulf cities are growing. The gulf cooperation council states (GCCs) are among the richest and most urbanized in the world. As a major focus on sustainable development of cities, sustainable transportation acts to diminish the city’s energy consumption by providing a public transport system that has greater ecological obligation and societal justice. The study’s significance is to figure out the challenges in the sector of public transport in the city of Muscat. The wide spread of mass transportation plays a significant role in reducing the exhaustion of energy. Also, it contributes to make a better living experience.  Provision of sustainable public transport will prevent the increasing number of motor cars and equally accompanied environmental pollution and traffic congestion. The study is based on an in-depth quantitative and qualitative research method to explore the hindrances that are encountered in the way of building sustainable infrastructure of public transport. The findings of the study revealed that public transport system face real challenges in Gulf region, particularly in Muscat. It indicated that for the well-being of Gulf society, the use of public transportation was encouraged and most of the population have their own cars. In addition to it, cultural and social preservations are raised, mainly by the people that act against the operation of public transport system. Due to the substantial effect of clean  and  sustainable transportation  on energy consumption levels, recent years have been marked with a notable trend  towards  sustainable and  low carbon systems, particularly the mass  transportation ones.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 5779
Author(s):  
Justyna Patalas-Maliszewska ◽  
Hanna Łosyk

Efforts toward a low-emission economy constitute a common challenge for Polish cities. Solutions are being sought to support Polish, medium-sized cities, that is, cities with about 140,000 inhabitants, to implement and develop low-carbon energy in their public transport systems. This paper proposes and explores a sustainable urban development card for a Polish city, namely, Zielona Góra, the use of which will enable the effects of a public transport system using low-carbon energy to be monitored. This research was based on the two main areas of analysis of a system of low-carbon energy and public transport and were formulated as: (1) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and (2) Indicators of the Satisfaction Rate of Public Transport Passengers (SPTP). This paper used literature studies to determine SDGs as well a questionnaire-cum-survey, which was conducted on a sample of 1022 public transport passengers in Zielona Góra, Poland, to determine SPTP. The results were verified by a real case study of a Polish city, which, in 2019, had the largest fleet of electric buses in Poland; a statistical analysis was also conducted using correlation coefficients. It was determined that the proposed approach allows for low carbon energy public transport to be constantly monitored and analyzed. In the long run, this could be a good benchmark as to how cities might improve their level of sustainability.



1987 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 95-100
Author(s):  
P. Michelberger ◽  
L. Lesley ◽  
P. Varlaki


Electronics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 1501
Author(s):  
Juan Ruiz-Rosero ◽  
Gustavo Ramirez-Gonzalez ◽  
Rahul Khanna

There is a large number of tools for the simulation of traffic and routes in public transport systems. These use different simulation models (macroscopic, microscopic, and mesoscopic). Unfortunately, these simulation tools are limited when simulating a complete public transport system, which includes all its buses and routes (up to 270 for the London Underground). The processing times for these type of simulations increase in an unmanageable way since all the relevant variables that are required to simulate consistently and reliably the system behavior must be included. In this paper, we present a new simulation model for public transport routes’ simulation called Masivo. It runs the public transport stops’ operations in OpenCL work items concurrently, using a multi-core high performance platform. The performance results of Masivo show a speed-up factor of 10.2 compared with the simulator model running with one compute unit and a speed-up factor of 278 times faster than the validation simulator. The real-time factor achieved was 3050 times faster than the 10 h simulated duration, for a public transport system of 300 stops, 2400 buses, and 456,997 passengers.



Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (15) ◽  
pp. 4315
Author(s):  
Mark Richard Wilby ◽  
Juan José Vinagre Díaz ◽  
Rubén Fernández Pozo ◽  
Ana Belén Rodríguez González ◽  
José Manuel Vassallo ◽  
...  

Bicycle Sharing Systems (BSSs) are exponentially increasing in the urban mobility sector. They are traditionally conceived as a last-mile complement to the public transport system. In this paper, we demonstrate that BSSs can be seen as a public transport system in their own right. To do so, we build a mathematical framework for the classification of BSS trips. Using trajectory information, we create the trip index, which characterizes the intrinsic purpose of the use of BSS as transport or leisure. The construction of the trip index required a specific analysis of the BSS shortest path, which cannot be directly calculated from the topology of the network given that cyclists can find shortcuts through traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, etc. to reduce the overall traveled distance. Adding a layer of complication to the problem, these shortcuts have a non-trivial existence in terms of being intermittent, or short lived. We applied the proposed methodology to empirical data from BiciMAD, the public BSS in Madrid (Spain). The obtained results show that the trip index correctly determines transport and leisure categories, which exhibit distinct statistical and operational features. Finally, we inferred the underlying BSS public transport network and show the fundamental trajectories traveled by users. Based on this analysis, we conclude that 90.60% of BiciMAD’s use fall in the category of transport, which demonstrates our first statement.



Author(s):  
Leanne Seeliger ◽  
Lisa Kane

Cape Town’s apartheid spatial form and historically under resourced public transport system has created a resource inefficient city. Providing additional financial resources to upgrade the public transport system will not be sufficient to encourage a shift to low carbon alternatives. To create a low carbon future for Cape Town a deeper level of change is required – a radical transformation in the way different people and places are valued within the present urban context. This case study analyses a civil society movement called Open Streets through the lens of transition theory. It suggests that this movement is a niche development in which a transformation of the way people and places are valued could occur. While this movement has been well received and appears to have potential to help shift the regime of urban transport system in Cape Town, there remains a series of organisational, logistical, regulatory and funding barriers that are hampering its full development and long-term impact.



2020 ◽  
pp. 911-933
Author(s):  
Yetis Sazi Murat ◽  
Ziya Cakici

Public transport is one of the main actors of sustainable transportation. To make an increase in the use of public transport systems and a decrease in private car usage are one of the main purposes of decision makers in many countries. Usage of public transport system has a strong relation with the quality of service. Service quality includes many parameters such as comfort, frequency, information system etc. Fare is another important parameter on demand for public transport systems. All of these parameters are varied by users' perceptions. This study focuses on public transport systems of Denizli, Turkey and investigates users' perceptions. Bus and paratransit (minibus) modes are regarded in the study. The public survey is performed for these modes. In the surveys, different questions have been asked to participants. Answer of each question is evaluated separately and distribution of each question for gender, ages and jobs are analyzed. Results obtained are summarized and discussed.



2021 ◽  
pp. 97-113
Author(s):  
Debasish Roy Chowdhury ◽  
John Keane

This chapter focuses on India’s public transport system. If cities are democratic laboratories that nurture free and equal motion, then India fails the test every day. In Mumbai, for example, up to sixteen people can find themselves packed into a one-square-metre space inside a carriage during peak hours as Indian Railways fails to provide enough trains and coaches to the financial capital’s arterial rail network. Travelling like animals, risking their lives for livelihood, has been the lot of Mumbai’s daily commuters for as long as they can remember. Away from the cities, where 70 per cent of India lives, the picture is even bleaker, with virtually no state-run public transport system—buses or trains. The daily indignities and inconveniences of travelling prevents citizens from freely accessing goods, services, and social networks that are key to the pursuit of their chosen life strategies. By hindering everyday mobility, hazardous and insufficient transport options have the anti-democratic effect of perpetuating social inequities and dispersing communities into isolated silos that prevent collective assembly, deliberation, and action. Other than dilapidated or non-existent public transport systems, elitist policies, and poor government oversight hinder movement—and democracy—in various other ways.



2012 ◽  
Vol 253-255 ◽  
pp. 2001-2004
Author(s):  
Yong Fang Li

Building low-carbon public transport system is an important part of low-carbon urban transport sector. On the basis of analysis of the concept, meaning and significance of low-carbon transport, this paper analyzed the need to build low-carbon public transport system, and from the aspects of planning, technical, management and travelers, proposed appropriate measures to build low-carbon public transport system. Finally, the paper guided the traveler to consciously low-carbon travel. Through taking more measures to build low-carbon public transport system, we can achieve the sustainable development of urban transport.



2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 13356
Author(s):  
Ioannis Politis ◽  
Georgios Georgiadis ◽  
Aristomenis Kopsacheilis ◽  
Anastasia Nikolaidou ◽  
Panagiotis Papaioannou

The coronavirus pandemic has affected everyday life to a significant degree. The transport sector is no exception, with mobility restrictions and social distancing affecting the operation of transport systems. This research attempts to examine the effect of the pandemic on the users of the public transport system of London through analyzing tweets before (2019) and during (2020) the outbreak. For the needs of the research, we initially assess the sentiment expressed by users using the SentiStrength tool. In total, almost 250,000 tweets were collected and analyzed, equally distributed between the two years. Afterward, by examining the word clouds of the tweets expressing negative sentiment and by applying the latent Dirichlet allocation method, we investigate the most prevalent topics in both analysis periods. Results indicate an increase in negative sentiment on dates when stricter restrictions against the pandemic were imposed. Furthermore, topic analysis results highlight that although users focused on the operational conditions of the public transport network during the pre-pandemic period, they tend to refer more to the effect of the pandemic on public transport during the outbreak. Additionally, according to correlations between ridership data and the frequency of pandemic-related terms, we found that during 2020, public transport demand was decreased while tweets with negative sentiment were being increased at the same time.



ASTONJADRO ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Muhammad Nanang Prayudyanto

<p>The growth and concentration of motor vehicles in developing cities has led to increased demand for urban mobility. Renewed commitments of Asian cities are required in order to achieve the SDG target on urban mobility as well as to enhance overall sustainability of urban transport systems and services. Cities and countries need to track the progress in improving urban mobility. With a view to support evidence based decision, the paper introduces the Sustainable Urban Transport Index (SUTI) of urban transport services, to help summarize, track and compare the state of urban mobility in Asian cities, as model for developing cities in the world. It also presents the results of pilot application of SUTI in four Asian cities: Greater Jakarta; Kathmandu; Hanoi; and Colombo. The four pilot cities were able to collect data, analyzed and assess the state of urban mobility in their city using SUTI. The assessment result supported policy makers to identify policy gaps, prioritize additional measures and investment strategies required to improve urban transport systems and services in each city. The visual output display in spider diagram was useful to comprehend state of all 10 key indicators in a glace. The pilot study demonstrated the usefulness of SUTI tool and the pilot cities were already using the results of SUTI analysis. In Kathmandu additional efforts are required to improve pedestrian infrastructure and facilities, Colombo needed to improve quality and reliability of public transport system, while Hanoi and Greater Jakarta need to put additional efforts to increase mode share of public transport system.</p>



Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document