On the Bike Spreading Problem

A free-floating bike-sharing system (FFBSS) is a dockless rental system where an individual can borrow a bike and returns it anywhere, within the service area. To improve the rental service, available bikes should be distributed over the entire service area: a customer leaving from any position is then more likely to find a near bike and then to use the service. Moreover, spreading bikes among the entire service area increases urban spatial equity since the benefits of FFBSS are not a prerogative of just a few zones. For guaranteeing such distribution, the FFBSS operator can use vans to manually relocate bikes, but it incurs high economic and environmental costs. We propose a novel approach that exploits the existing bike flows generated by customers to distribute bikes. More specifically, by envisioning the problem as an Influence Maximization problem, we show that it is possible to position batches of bikes on a small number of zones, and then the daily use of FFBSS will efficiently spread these bikes on a large area. We show that detecting these zones is NP-complete, but there exists a simple and efficient 1-1/e approximation algorithm; our approach is then evaluated on a dataset of rides from the free-floating bike-sharing system of the city of Padova

Improving the service of E-bike sharing by demand pattern analysis: A data-driven approach

In recent years, there has been a surge in the popularity of free-floating e-bike sharing. However, the shared mobility sector is fiercely competitive demanding, efficient operations and high-quality service to cater to user expectations. We propose several data-driven methods that apply demand pattern analysis. We suggest the use of a new spatial unit (i.e., overlapping circles) to enhance the cost-efficiency and user-friendliness of e-bike sharing. Moreover, temporal clustering is employed to develop operational strategies that counter the imbalance in supply and demand in recurrent clusters. To evaluate the impact of these strategies, we introduce a framework and apply it in a case study of an e-bike sharing project in The Hague, The Netherlands. We identify 5 hourly clusters which enable reallocation strategies to alleviate the imbalance among spatial units in these clusters. The results demonstrate that the derived operational strategies improve the service significantly, with almost 1.5 times increased ridership, an approximately 20% decrease in vehicle idle time, and a decent monthly net retention rate of around 60%

Toward Sustainability: Bike-Sharing Systems Design, Simulation and Management

The goal of this Special Issue is to discuss new challenges in the simulation and management problems of both traditional and innovative bike-sharing systems, to ultimately encourage the competitiveness and attractiveness of BSSs, and contribute to the further promotion of sustainable mobility. We have selected thirteen papers for publication in this Special Issue

CITIES: Energetic Efficiency, Sustainability; Infrastructures, Energy and the Environment; Mobility and IoT; Governance and Citizenship

This book collects important contributions on smart cities. This book was created in collaboration with the ICSC-CITIES2020, held in San José (Costa Rica) in 2020. This book collects articles on: energetic efficiency and sustainability; infrastructures, energy and the environment; mobility and IoT; governance and citizenship

Disclosure of the everyday : the undramatic achievements in narrative film

The claim providing the starting point for this thesis is that most narrative films are in an overtly dramatic, melodramatic or comic idiom. These modes seem most adept at tapping the visually expressive potentialities of the art and satisfying the needs of the audience: the narratives of most films are structured around either confrontation, or colourful events, or crisis, or periods of significant change, and they are expressed in a demonstrative visual style. This thesis is interested in the way a few films uncover profundity by structuring narrative around a range of life experiences unavailable to the melodramatic mode as it has developed in world cinema; life experiences based in the everyday, that is in the routine or repetitive, in the apparently banal or mundane, the uneventful. The first part of the thesis discusses the nature of the achievement of these undramatic films which address the everyday: how they help us to understand the medium of film, its possibilities, and how they enhance our ways of viewing and appreciating narratives. This section also focuses on the work of Stanley Cavell, exploring the links between the everyday, film melodrama, and scepticism. The second half of the thesis looks at the specific achievements of four films. Here, the thesis continues the expressive tradition of film scholarship which analyses the communication of meaning through the construction of mise-en-scene, exploring how the themes, ideas, and happenings of a film are served by their stylistic strategies, while further highlighting how such strategies may reveal significant possibilities of the medium. In doing so it follows the approach of writers such as Stanley Cavell, V. F. Perkins and George M. Wilson whilst redirecting this tradition by applying it to less obviously expressive films

MethOds and tools for comprehensive impact Assessment of the CCAM solutions for passengers and goods. D1.1: CCAM solutions review and gaps

Review of the state-of-the-art on Cooperative, Connected and Automated mobility use cases, scenarios, business models, Key Performance Indicators, impact evaluation methods, technologies, and user needs (for organisations & citizens)