Influence of Built Environment on Bike Sharing Usage under COVID-19

ABSTRACTBike sharing, as an important component of urban public transportation, has played a more important role during the COVID-19 pandemic because users could ride bikes in open space and avoid the risk of infection. Leveraging the trip data of the Divvy bike sharing system in Chicago, this study sets to explore the change of ridership that COVID-19 has brought and the built environment factors that influence the spatial variation of ridership under the pandemic. Results show that the ridership declines by xx% in total. To account for the spatially heterogeneous relationship between the built environment and the ridership, the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model and the semi-parametric GWR (S-GWR) model are constructed. By comparing the model results, we find that the S-GWR model outperforms the GWR and the multiple linear regression model. The results of the S-GWR model indicates that education employment density, distance to subway, COVID-19 cases and ridership before COVID-19 are global variables. The ridership between residential density, office employment density and the ridership vary across space. The results of this study could provide useful reference to transportation planners and bike sharing operators to determine the high bike sharing demand area under the pandemic and to make adjustment on the locations and capacity of the stations and the rebalancing schemes accordingly.

An examination of the structure and dynamics of Singapore's maturing Central Area office market

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the structure and dynamics of Singapore's Central Area office market. A long-run equilibrium relationship is tested and a short-run adjustment error correction model are estimated, incorporating appropriate serial error correction. The long-run equation is estimated for office rent, with office employment and available stock. Design/methodology/approach – With the vector error correction model (VECM), the lagged rent, available stock, office employment, vacancy and occupied stock (OS) can impact the rental adjustment process. Equilibrium rent on the whole reacts positively to lagged rents, available stock, office employment, OS and negatively to vacancy rates (VC). Past levels of positive change in VC and rental growth can have negative effects on current OS. Findings – While good economic conditions signaled by increases in rents increase the supply of new stock (available space), higher rents and VC dampen the long-term occupied space (space absorption) in accordance with economic theory. Available stock can be forecasted by past rent and absorption levels owing to the developer's profit-driven nature. Research limitations/implications – An understanding of the interaction between the macroeconomic variables and the Central Area office market is useful to domestic and foreign investors and developers, who then can better evaluate their decision making in commercial real estate investment and development projects. Practical implications – It is implicit that the Singapore Central Area office market requires at least a year before any rental increase can potentially dampen the space demanded. Firms are attracted to locate there owing to agglomeration economies and they are willing to pay premium office rents in conjunction with office space intensification in the Central Area. Newly built space is positively affected by past rents. Urban Redevelopment Authority and private real estate developers should be wary of excess office sector vacancies by avoiding over supply, even though an increase in the supply of office space in the Central Area can have a positive impact on office rent in the longer term. Most of the office space development would tend to meet the demand in the long run. Rental stickiness is exemplified as rental changes are affected by lagged rent. Social implications – Policy makers are better enabled to stabilize the office sectors of the real estate market if so required. Originality/value – The paper adopts the VECM and validated by empirical evidence, to investigate the long-run equilibrium relationship and short-term corrections underlying the dynamics of the Singapore Central office market. Delay in the restoration of equilibrium in real estate markets is attributed to factors like lease terms and supply lags.

Skills and Training in the Hotel Sector: The Case of Front Office Employment in Northern Ireland

Notwithstanding the globalisation of services and the migration of some service providers (call centres, financial processing) to regions of low cost labour coupled with high levels of education attainment, there are arguments that the skills, which employees bring to the workplace in executing common tasks, are context and culture specific. This paper is concerned with the skills set and training background of one set of service workers, those in hotel front office, located within Northern Ireland. This paper reports the findings of a survey of front office workers working in 4- and 5-star hotels in Northern Ireland. This survey identifies the skills and training profile of this group of employees and measures attitudes to key skills requirements within front office work.

Modeling the Dynamics of the Hong Kong Office Market under Economic Structural Change

The author adopts reduced-form equilibrium models to investigate the relations among vacancy, employment, space consumption, and rent in the Hong Kong office market under economic structural change. The models are estimated with the aid of data from Hong Kong during the period 1980–2002—a total of twenty-three yearly observations. It is hoped that empirical results will shed light on the adjustment mechanism of the local office market. In line with the existing literature, the author shows that, on the one hand, office rent is positively related to office employment, but inversely related to office stock. On the other hand, the demand for office space is inversely related to rent, but positively related to office employment. Moreover, the elasticity of space consumption with respect to rent is estimated to be inelastic. Historical simulations of the model are performed, and it is suggested that the equations simulate reasonably well as indicated by Theil's inequality.

POSTTRAUMATIC DISSOCIATION AS A MEDIATOR OF THE EFFECTS OF TRAUMA ON DISTRESSFUL INTROSPECTIVENESS

This paper focuses on the stable personality trait of introspectiveness, exploring the relationship between introspectiveness and childhood trauma, dissociation and emotional distress. Ninety Israeli women were recruited from emergency counseling services and from academic and office employment settings. Pearson correlations between traumatic experiences and various dimensions of introspectiveness revealed significant links. Negative emotional and sexual experiences were the trauma variables that contributed most to this relationship, whereas a tendency to be aware of feelings toward family and about mortality were the dimensions of introspection that added most to this association. Prior trauma history, dissociation, introspectiveness, and emotional distress were significantly interrelated. The data from a path analysis performed suggest that introspectiveness may be better explained by the independent effect of dissociation rather than directly by trauma or by emotional distress. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

Functional and Spatial Segregation in the Swiss Financial Sector: Pink-Collar Ghetto and Male Bastion

Our purpose in this paper is to show the circumstances and consequences of the extensive growth in employment in the Swiss financial sector that occurred in the 1980s, which are to a large extent responsible for the current patterns of restructuring and dismissal in Swiss banks. Four study areas were chosen: Switzerland as a whole; the city of Zurich; its surrounding suburban regions; and one particular suburban region. All these areas are highly identified with the financial sector. First we evaluate the changes in numbers of employees between 1980 and 1990 and the gender breakdown within different occupational categories in the three study areas. The data for the analysis were gained from the Swiss censuses of 1980 and 1990. Second, we look at the circumstances that caused the suburbanisation of bank back-office functions and the impact on office employment, putting special emphasis on women occupied in clerical–secretarial work. The focus is on one suburban zone around Zurich which experienced the most noticeable growth in office employment of all suburban regions over the last two decades. The findings of this study suggest that the Swiss banks are a male bastion. Women are mainly found in the lower qualified occupations, such as clerical–secretarial work. Moreover, the suburban belt is characterised by a high percentage of women in pink-collar jobs whereas the city is dominated by male employees.