Agent-Based Modeling of the Formation and Prevention of Residential Diffusion on Urban Edges

This paper presents an exploratory urban dynamics agent-based model (ABM) that simulates the relationship between the introduction of a hub facility open to residents, the interaction promotion around it, and transport policies on the sustainability of urban development through the autonomous actions of individual residents. By contrasting the model results with theoretical and empirical insights from actual cities, the validity of modeling the formation of residential diffusion on urban edges based on individual gain-maximizing daily travel and residential relocation is explained. The major contribution of the model is that it offers a new perspective on the bottom-up control of residential diffusion on urban edges, with benefits for productive human interactions at the microscale. Specifically, the model experimentally suggests the existence of a trade-off between increasing human interactions, through the introduction of an open hub attracting diverse activities and promotion of interaction around it, as well as the progression of residential diffusion. The model also suggests that the direction of urbanization is the result of collective action, and sustainable urbanization may be achieved through concerted efforts.

Construction Technology and Safety Monitoring Measures of Road and Bridge Engineering

With the acceleration of urbanization and the continuous improvement of urban infrastructure construction, roads and bridges, as an important infrastructure content in China, directly affect people’s daily travel. Therefore, the construction and management of roads and bridges must be improved to ensure the quality and safety of roads and bridges and effectively prevent safety accidents. Strengthen the management of road and bridge construction through safety monitoring, improve the safety factor of the project and ensure people’s travel safety. This paper mainly analyzes the common diseases and construction technology of road and bridge engineering construction, and puts forward safety monitoring measures.

A database of travel-related behaviors and attitudes before, during, and after COVID-19 in the United States

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted billions of people around the world. To capture some of these impacts in the United States, we are conducting a nationwide longitudinal survey collecting information about activity and travel-related behaviors and attitudes before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey questions cover a wide range of topics including commuting, daily travel, air travel, working from home, online learning, shopping, and risk perception, along with attitudinal, socioeconomic, and demographic information. The survey is deployed over multiple waves to the same respondents to monitor how behaviors and attitudes evolve over time. Version 1.0 of the survey contains 8,723 responses that are publicly available. This article details the methodology adopted for the collection, cleaning, and processing of the data. In addition, the data are weighted to be representative of national and regional demographics. This survey dataset can aid researchers, policymakers, businesses, and government agencies in understanding both the extent of behavioral shifts and the likelihood that changes in behaviors will persist after COVID-19.

Built Environment Characteristics, Daily Travel, and Biometric Readings: Creation of an Experimental Tool Based on a Smartwatch Platform

Travel surveys can uncover information regarding travel behaviour, needs, and more. Collected information is utilised to make choices when reorganising or planning built environments. Over the years, methods for conducting travel surveys have changed from interviews and forms to automated travel diaries in order to monitor trips made by travellers. With the fast progression of technological advancements, new possibilities for operationalising such travel diaries can be implemented, changing from utilising mobile to wearable devices. Wearable devices are often equipped with sensors which collect continuous biometric data from sources that are not reachable from standard mobile devices. Data collected through wearable devices range from heart rate and blood pressure to temperature and perspiration. This advancement opens new possible layers of information in the collection of travel data. Such biometric data can be used to derive psychophysiological conditions related to cognitive load, which can uncover in-depth knowledge regarding stress and emotions. This paper aims to explore the possibilities of data analysis on the data collected through a software combining travel survey data, such as position and time, with heartrate, to gain knowledge of the implications of such data. The knowledge about the implications of spatial configurations can be used to create more accessible environments.

Analysis of Maintenance and Inspection Status of Aeronautical Machinery and Improvement Countermeasures

In the daily operation process of airlines, aviation machinery maintenance and inspection work play an important role. At present, the quality of life of the people in our country is constantly improving. In daily travel, we have not only used cars, trains and other means of transportation, but also started to choose airplanes as the first choice in a higher frequency. In recent years, with the improvement of living standards, more and more people choose to travel during holidays. Therefore, the traffic volume of aviation aircraft is increasing year by year, but it also increases the risk of aviation aircraft failure, so it is particularly important to do a good job in the maintenance and inspection of aviation machinery. In this paper, according to the current situation of aviation machinery maintenance and inspection, put forward targeted improvement measures to ensure the safety and stability of China’s aviation aircraft operation.

Adaptive drift and barrier-avoidance by a fly-forage migrant along a climate-driven flyway

Background Route choice and travel performance of fly-forage migrants are partly driven by large-scale habitat availability, but it remains unclear to what extent wind support through large-scale wind regimes moulds their migratory behaviour. We aimed to determine to what extent a trans-equatorial fly-forage migrant engages in adaptive drift through distinct wind regimes and biomes across Africa. The Inter-tropical Front (ITF) marks a strong and seasonally shifting climatic boundary at the thermal equator, and we assessed whether migratory detours were associated with this climatic feature. Furthermore, we sought to disentangle the influence of wind and biome on daily, regional and seasonal travel performance. Methods We GPS-tracked 19 adult Eleonora’s falcons Falco eleonorae from the westernmost population on the Canary Islands across 39 autumn and 36 spring migrations to and from Madagascar. Tracks were annotated with wind data to assess the falcons’ orientation behaviour and the wind support they achieved in each season and distinct biomes. We further tested whether falcon routes across the Sahel were correlated with the ITF position, and how realized wind support and biome affect daily travel times, distances and speeds. Results Changes in orientation behaviour across Africa’s biomes were associated with changes in prevailing wind fields. Falcons realized higher wind support along their detours than was available along the shortest possible route by drifting through adverse autumn wind fields, but compromised wind support while detouring through supportive spring wind fields. Movements across the Sahel-Sudan zone were strongly associated to the ITF position in autumn, but were more individually variable in spring. Realized wind support was an important driver of daily travel speeds and distances, in conjunction with regional wind-independent variation in daily travel time budgets. Conclusions Although daily travel time budgets of falcons vary independently from wind, their daily travel performance is strongly affected by orientation-dependent wind support. Falcons thereby tend to drift to minimize or avoid headwinds through opposing wind fields and over ecological barriers, while compensating through weak or supportive wind fields and over hospitable biomes. The ITF may offer a climatic leading line to fly-forage migrants in terms of both flight and foraging conditions.

Changes in mobility pre and post first SARS-CoV-2 vaccination: findings from a prospective community cohort study including GPS movement tracking in England and Wales (Virus Watch)

Background: Some evidence suggests that individuals may change adherence to public health policies aimed at reducing contact, transmission and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus after they receive their first SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. In this study, we aim to estimate the rate of change in average daily travel distance from a participant's registered address before and after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Method: Participants were recruited into Virus Watch starting in June 2020. Weekly surveys were sent out to participants and vaccination status was collected from January 2021 onwards. Between September 2020 and February 2021, we invited 13,120 adult Virus Watch participants to contribute towards our tracker sub-cohort which uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) to collect data on movement. We used segmented linear regression to estimate the median daily travel distance before and after the first self-reported SARS-CoV-2 vaccine dose. Results: We analysed the daily travel distance of 228 vaccinated adults. Between 157 days prior to vaccination until the day before vaccination, the median daily travel distance travelled was 8.9km (IQR: 3.50km, 24.17km). Between the day of vaccination and 100 days after vaccination, the median daily travel distance travelled was 10.30km (IQR: 4.11, 27.53km). Between 157 days prior to vaccination and the vaccination date, there was a daily median decrease in mobility of 40m (95%CI: -51m, -31m, p-value <0.001) per day. After the removal of outlier data, and between the vaccination date and 99 days after vaccination, there was a median daily increase in movement of 45.0m (95%CI: 25m, 65m, p-value = <0.001). Restricting the analysis to the 3rd national lockdown (4th of January 2021 to the 5th of April 2021), we found a median daily movement increase of 9m (95%CI: -25m, 45m, p = 0.57) in the 30 days prior to vaccination and the vaccination date, and a median daily movement increase of 10m (95%CI: -60m, 94m, p-value = 0.69) in the 30 days after vaccination. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates the feasibility of collecting high volume geolocation data as part of research projects, and the utility of these for understanding public health issues. Our results are consistent with both an increase and decrease in movement after vaccination and suggest that, amongst Virus Watch participants, any changes in movement distances post-vaccination are small.