Developing indicators of age-friendly neighbourhood environments for urban and rural communities across 20 low-, middle-, and high-income countries

Background By 2050, the global population of adults 60 + will reach 2.1 billion, surging fastest in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). In response, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed indicators of age-friendly urban environments, but these criteria have been challenging to apply in rural areas and LMIC. This study fills this gap by adapting the WHO indicators to such settings and assessing variation in their availability by community-level urbanness and country-level income. Methods We used data from the Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study’s environmental-assessment tools, which integrated systematic social observation and ecometrics to reliably capture community-level environmental features associated with cardiovascular-disease risk factors. The results of a scoping review guided selection of 18 individual indicators across six distinct domains, with data available for 496 communities in 20 countries, including 382 communities (77%) in LMIC. Finally, we used both factor analysis of mixed data (FAMD) and multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) approaches to describe relationships between indicators and domains, as well as detailing the extent to which these relationships held true within groups defined by urbanness and income. Results Together, the results of the FAMD and MTMM approaches indicated substantial variation in the relationship of individual indicators to each other and to broader domains, arguing against the development of an overall score and extending prior evidence demonstrating the need to adapt the WHO framework to the local context. Communities in high-income countries generally ranked higher across the set of indicators, but regular connections to neighbouring towns via bus (95%) and train access (76%) were most common in low-income countries. The greatest amount of variation by urbanness was seen in the number of streetscape-greenery elements (33 such elements in rural areas vs. 55 in urban), presence of traffic lights (18% vs. 67%), and home-internet availability (25% vs. 54%). Conclusions This study indicates the extent to which environmental supports for healthy ageing may be less readily available to older adults residing in rural areas and LMIC and augments calls to tailor WHO’s existing indicators to a broader range of communities in order to achieve a critical aspect of distributional equity in an ageing world.

Traffic Flow Prediction for Smart Traffic Lights Using Machine Learning Algorithms

Nowadays, many cities have problems with traffic congestion at certain peak hours, which produces more pollution, noise and stress for citizens. Neural networks (NN) and machine-learning (ML) approaches are increasingly used to solve real-world problems, overcoming analytical and statistical methods, due to their ability to deal with dynamic behavior over time and with a large number of parameters in massive data. In this paper, machine-learning (ML) and deep-learning (DL) algorithms are proposed for predicting traffic flow at an intersection, thus laying the groundwork for adaptive traffic control, either by remote control of traffic lights or by applying an algorithm that adjusts the timing according to the predicted flow. Therefore, this work only focuses on traffic flow prediction. Two public datasets are used to train, validate and test the proposed ML and DL models. The first one contains the number of vehicles sampled every five minutes at six intersections for 56 days using different sensors. For this research, four of the six intersections are used to train the ML and DL models. The Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network (MLP-NN) obtained better results (R-Squared and EV score of 0.93) and took less training time, followed closely by Gradient Boosting then Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), with good metrics results but the longer training time, and finally Random Forest, Linear Regression and Stochastic Gradient. All ML and DL algorithms scored good performance metrics, indicating that they are feasible for implementation on smart traffic light controllers.

Polish Consumers’ Understanding of Different Front-of-Package Food Labels: A Randomized Experiment

Dietary practices are a key behavioral factor in chronic disease prevention; one strategy for improving such practices population-wise involves front-of-package labels (FoPL). This online randomized study, conducted in a quota-based sample of 1159 Polish adults (mean age = 40.9 ± 15.4 years), assessed the objective understanding of five FoPL: Health Star Rating, Multiple Traffic Lights, NutriScore, Reference Intakes (RI) and Warning Label. Objective understanding was evaluated by comparing results of two nutritional quality ranking tasks (without/with FoPL) using three food categories (breakfast cereals, cakes, pizza). Associations between FoPL exposure and objective understanding were assessed via multivariable ordinal logistic regression. Compared to RI and across food categories, significant improvement in objective understanding was seen for NutriScore (OR = 2.02; 95% CI: 1.41–2.91) and Warning Label (OR = 1.61; 95% CI: 1.12–2.32). In age-stratified analyses, significant improvement in objective understanding compared to RI emerged mainly among adults aged 18–30 years randomized to NutriScore (all food categories: OR = 3.88; 95% CI: 2.04–7.36; cakes: OR = 6.88; 95% CI: 3.05–15.51). Relative to RI, NutriScore was associated with some improvement in objective understanding of FoPL across and within food categories, especially among young adults. These findings contribute to the ongoing debate about an EU-wide FoPL model.

Opportunities to improve road traffic on short-length road connections by correlating intersection traffic lights

The paper aims to explore the possibilities of improving road traffic in the central area of cities characterized by a longitudinal arrangement of the street network, with application for the case of Pitesti, where the road network in the central area consists of two main roads arranged longitudinally, having one-way regulated traffic, interconnected by several streets. A special traffic problem is reported in the city center: on the main road connecting the two boulevards, the vehicle storage space is insufficient - because the distance between the two road intersections is too small and there is no correlation between the Green phases of traffic lights in the two intersections. The research, based on traffic measurements performed with DataFromSky software and micro-simulation traffic analyses performed with Vissim PTV software, indicated that the best solution is the partial or total correlation of the green time from the traffic light intersections that delimit the connecting road artery. As, almost exclusively, the works dedicated to the correlation of green light of traffic lights treat the problem only along the road arteries, this paper raises a special issue and reveals the possibility of simple solutions, by correlating the traffic lights at the intersections connecting the main arteries.

Analysis of transport delays in the central part of the city and ways to reduce them

The main task in ensuring the appropriate level of organization of traffic on the street and road network of cities is to minimize traffic delays, increase traffic safety, provide transport and pedestrian communication between the planning elements of the city. Problems caused by the deterioration of the street and road network significantly affect the work of the entire transport complex of the city. Significant traffic delays, congestion, characterized by increased travel time, deterioration of transport services, increased pollution of urban environment due to increased emissions and noise, increasing the number of road accidents indicate the inconsistency of the road network of cities to the modern level of motorization. To ensure the required capacity of the elements of the road network, there is a need to create appropriate road conditions, namely the construction of new and reconstruction of existing engineering structures and elements of streets and roads. However, addressing these issues may not always improve the performance of the entire network, as, in parallel with technical measures based on the construction and reconstruction of transport infrastructure, the application of effective traffic management measures to manage traffic in urban areas should be addressed streets. When creating conditions for optimizing the operation of regulated intersections, it is necessary to take into account the technical condition of vehicles, road conditions and the condition of the road surface. One of the main tasks of any traffic organization is to increase the capacity of intersections and reduce vehicle delays, ie the passage of traffic lights with minimal delay. To solve the problem of congestion of the street and road network of the city is to increase the efficiency and use of coordinated management of traffic and pedestrian flows, improving the operation of traffic lights. To implement the introduction of coordinated traffic light regulation, or the so-called green wave, it is necessary to establish the intensity and composition of traffic flows, the capacity of the elements of the road network and the modes of operation of traffic light facilities. The paper considers the results of the study of the impact of coordinated traffic management in the central part of Rivne on reducing traffic delays when passing intersections by vehicles and proposed technical solutions to improve road safety by equipping intersections with additional technical means of traffic control.

The Simulation of Traffic Signal Preemption using GPS and Dijkstra Algorithm for Emergency Fire Handling at Makassar City Fire Service

The Makassar City Fire Department often faces obstacles in handling fires. Problems that often hinder such as congestion at crossroads, panic residents, and others. The result of this research is a system that can assist firefighters when handling fire cases in terms of accelerating the firefighting team to the location of the fire. Dijkstra's algorithm will be used to find the shortest path to the fire location and the travel time. Then the traffic signal preemption simulation adjusts the color of the lights when the GPS vehicle approaches the traffic lights on the path to be traversed. The simulation results show that the use of traffic signal preemption in collaboration with Dijkstra's algorithm and GPS can help the performance of the Makassar City Fire Department, especially for handling fires that require fast time.

Impact of Parking Maneuvers on the Capacity of the Inlets of Intersections with Traffic Lights for Road Traffic Conditions in Poland

The goal of smart cities and sustainable transport is to ensure the efficient movement of people while minimizing a negative impact on the environment. Many cities around the world conduct a policy aimed at limiting parking spaces; however, the complete elimination of parking spaces in cities currently does not seem possible. Parking vehicles cause disturbances in road traffic by searching for a parking space and performing the parking maneuver. This article analyzes the impact of the parking maneuver on the capacity of the inlets of intersections with traffic lights, and the significance of the time it takes to enter and exit a parking space on road traffic disturbance areas under Polish conditions. The research is carried out in on-street parking, characterized by different positions of the parking space to the road, the different surfaces of parking spaces, and the geometry of the road next to which the parking spaces are located. Differences in the time of entry to and exit from the parking space between the research areas indicate that different characteristics of the parking spaces affect the time of the parking maneuver. Drivers wait for the acceptable distance between vehicles on the road into which the vehicle can exit from the parking space. Drivers exiting from perpendicular parking spaces more often cause traffic disruptions than in the case of parallel parking spaces, due to limited visibility. The occupancy of parking spaces directly next to the analyzed ones also affects the time of entry to and exit from the parking space. However, between the time of entry to or exit from the parking space, and the use of the parking space, there is no relationship. This finding indicates that more factors determine the time of entry to and exit from the parking space. The results presented in the article show the need to conduct further research on the impact of parking maneuvers on the capacity of intersections with traffic lights for road traffic conditions in Poland. The results of the research will allow for the design and construction of an optimal parking infrastructure that will meet the needs of road users, while minimizing the negative impact on road conditions and the natural environment following sustainable development.

Multi-Agent System for Intelligent Urban Traffic Management Using Wireless Sensor Networks Data

Intelligent traffic management is an important issue for smart cities. City councils try to implement the newest techniques and performant technologies in order to avoid traffic congestion, to optimize the use of traffic lights, to efficiently use car parking, etc. To find the best solution to this problem, Birmingham City Council decided to allow open-source predictive traffic forecasting by making the real-time datasets available. This paper proposes a multi-agent system (MAS) approach for intelligent urban traffic management in Birmingham using forecasting and classification techniques. The designed agents have the following tasks: forecast the occupancy rates for traffic flow, road junctions and car parking; classify the faults; control and monitor the entire process. The experimental results show that k-nearest neighbor forecasts with high accuracy rates for the traffic data and decision trees build the most accurate model for classifying the faults for their detection and repair in the shortest possible time. The whole learning process is coordinated by a monitoring agent in order to automate Birmingham city’s traffic management.

Traffic Lights Detection and Recognition Method Based on the Improved YOLOv4 Algorithm

For facing of the problems caused by the YOLOv4 algorithm’s insensitivity to small objects and low detection precision in traffic light detection and recognition, the Improved YOLOv4 algorithm is investigated in the paper using the shallow feature enhancement mechanism and the bounding box uncertainty prediction mechanism. The shallow feature enhancement mechanism is used to extract features from the network and improve the network’s ability to locate small objects and color resolution by merging two shallow features at different stages with the high-level semantic features obtained after two rounds of upsampling. Uncertainty is introduced in the bounding box prediction mechanism to improve the reliability of the prediction of the bounding box by modeling the output coordinates of the prediction bounding box and adding the Gaussian model to calculate the uncertainty of the coordinate information. The LISA traffic light data set is used to perform detection and recognition experiments separately. The Improved YOLOv4 algorithm is shown to have a high effectiveness in enhancing the detection and recognition precision of traffic lights. In the detection experiment, the area under the PR curve value of the Improved YOLOv4 algorithm is found to be 97.58%, which represents an increase of 7.09% in comparison to the 90.49% score gained in the Vision for Intelligent Vehicles and Applications Challenge Competition. In the recognition experiment, the mean average precision of the Improved YOLOv4 algorithm is 82.15%, which is 2.86% higher than that of the original YOLOv4 algorithm. The Improved YOLOv4 algorithm shows remarkable advantages as a robust and practical method for use in the real-time detection and recognition of traffic signal lights.

MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF ADAPTIVE CONTROL OF THE FUNCTIONING OF A TRAFFIC LIGHT AT THE CROSSROADS OF A URBAN TRANSPORTATION NETWORK

The subject of the research is the process of modeling the functioning of a traffic light, providing adaptive control of vehicles at the intersectionsof the city transport network. In the process of functioning of urban transport networks, such phenomena as traffic jams occur, which lead tosignificant economic losses, environmental degradation, frustration of road users and other types of negative impacts. Traffic jams often occur at thenodes of the urban transport network, which are intersections - the places of intersection, abutment or branching of roads of the urban network of thesame level. One of the causes of congestion is the ineffective management of traffic flows at intersections, which is provided by such an element of theintersection as a traffic light. Within the framework of the existing transport network, traffic lights that implement adaptive control with the help ofappropriate local controllers, and more complex system controllers created on their basis, ensuring that the situation in the external environment istaken into account, which is represented by several interconnected intersections, is currently one of the most important directions for solving theproblem of traffic jams. The traffic light flow control function is implemented using a microprocessor controller, which, according to a given algorithm, switches the traffic light colors corresponding to the phases of allowing and prohibiting the movement of the vehicle in the directions of theintersection roads.The article proposes a mathematical model for building an algorithm for the functioning of a microprocessor traffic light controller, whichprovides a prompt and adequate display of situations at intersections. The main features of the model include responsiveness to changes in situations atan intersection by changing the duration of the permissive phase of movement in each cycle of traffic light operation in proportion to the length of thequeue of vehicles in the corresponding direction of travel; adequate display of the external environment by several expressions of Poisson’s law,differing in different values of the parameter, each of which corresponds to a certain daily interval of traffic light functioning; the dynamics of changesin the traffic situation due to a decrease in the number of vehicles in the queue due to the passage of the intersection by vehicles during the green phaseof the traffic light is determined on the basis of expressions that determine the movement of bodies with uniformly accelerated and uniform movement,as well as on the basis of the differential equation of the dynamics of movement of vehicles in one row taking into account the delay caused by thereaction of drivers.