Collective Intelligence and the Mapping of Accessible Ways in the City: a Systematic Literature Review

This paper has the objective of assessing how ICTs are being used to provide accessibility in urban mobility, with special interest to collective intelligence approaches. A systematic literature review (SLR) was performed, using several different criteria to filter down the 500+ academic papers that were originally obtained from a search for “accessible maps” to the 43 papers that finally remained in the corpus of the SLR. Among the findings, it was noticed that (i) few studies explored the motivations of users that actively contribute, providing information to feed maps, and they restricted themselves to exploring three techniques: gaming, monetary reward and ranking; (ii) social networks are rarely used as a source of data for building and updating maps; and (iii) the literature does not discuss any initiative that aims to support the needs of physically and visually impaired citizens at the same time

Smarter choices ?changing the way we travel. Case study reports

This report accompanies the following volume:Cairns S, Sloman L, Newson C, Anable J, Kirkbride A and Goodwin P (2004)Smarter Choices ? Changing the Way We Travel. Report published by theDepartment for Transport, London, available via the ?Sustainable Travel? section ofwww.dft.gov.uk, and from http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/archive/00001224/

The Influence of Identity on Travel Behaviour

This thesis uses qualitative methodology to explore the role of identity shaping travel behaviour at an individual level, with a particular interest in the role of environmental values given their significance within environmental behaviour change policy. Awareness raising and ‘smarter choices’ are increasingly being considered as positive ways to reduce individual reliance on motorised transport through promoting value change and information about transport options. However, there is now widespread acknowledgement that environmental values are not a sufficient motive for pro-environmental behaviour – the so called ‘value action gap’. Research around the value action gap has increasingly moved towards a marketing approach of segmenting the population into a series of groups with defined characteristics who are assumed to behave in similar ways. This research applies a social psychological perspective based on Harré’s (2001) ‘standard model’ of identity to answer the question: ‘what is the role of identity in shaping travel behaviour?’ The relationships between aspects of identity are explored through three themes drawn from the research: environmental values; the significance of place; and relationships with other people. In order to promote a participant-directed approach, photo elicitation methods were used with twelve participants, which then established the basis for subsequent in-depth interviews with each participant. The research establishes that identity forms an overarching framework within which decisions around travel behaviour takes place. This framework of identity includes attitudes, values, experiences, skills, and relationships with other people. Pro-environmental travel behaviour can be encouraged by influencing the identity framework, for example by promoting the development of cycling skills in children, and giving young people a store of experiences of using public transport to draw from later in life

Advancing Mobility-as-a-Service: Lessons Learned from Leading-Edge Public Agencies

This report investigates current trends in the MaaS market in North America and how the public sector can most effectively collaborate with private companies to improve regional accessibility while protecting public interestsーsuch as equal access to transportation and job opportunities, effective traffic management to enable economic agglomeration, and safety. To clarify the opportunities for and challenges of this new technology, I study MaaS programs promoted by three leading transportation authorities: Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro), Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), and Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet). Through a careful review of the literature and in-person interviews with people involved with these three authorities, I draw lessons learned from the ongoing programs and propose three potential directions that transit agencies and local governments can take in developing future mobility strategies related to MaaS

Inclusive and Safe Mobility Needs of Senior Citizens: Implications for Age-Friendly Cities and Communities

publishedVersio

Inclusive and Safe Mobility Needs of Senior Citizens: Implications for Age-Friendly Cities and Communities

Municipalities are concerned with addressing social issues such as mobility inclusion and safety by increasing access to transport facilities and services for all groups in society to create equitable and equal access for all citizens. Moreover, the public transportation systems provided in cities have to be inclusive and safe, driven by emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based services that provide personalized recommendation to improve mobility inclusion and safety for all citizens in society, especially vulnerable road users such as senior citizens or older people. But at the moment, there are few studies that have investigated how municipalities can provide inclusive and safe public transportation in general and for senior citizens, particularly those aged 65 and above. Therefore, this study aimed to examine how to provide inclusive and safe mobility for senior citizens to improve out-of-home mobility services for senior citizens towards age-friendly cities and communities. Accordingly, a systematic literature review grounded on secondary data was adopted to investigate inclusive and safe mobility needs for senior citizens. The data were collected from previous research and existing documents, and a descriptive data analysis was carried out to provide insights on urban transportation policies related to senior citizens. Furthermore, case studies were adopted to present polices and strategies employed in Norway, Canada, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Northern Ireland to identify measures employed to address the public transportation needs of an aging society, focusing on the provision of inclusive and safe mobility to senior citizens. Further findings from this study included the possible use of emerging technologies such as AI-based machine learning for inclusive and safe mobility.publishedVersio

A mixed methods investigation of factors influencing decision-making for new active living infrastructure in different contexts

Physical inactivity increases the risk of many non-communicable diseases. The built environment is an important determinant of physical activity and the ways in which places are designed and built may lock in, or out, opportunities for greater physical activity and improved health outcomes. Policies and guidelines support the creation of active living infrastructure (walking and cycling infrastructure and open spaces); however, local social, environmental and political context may influence what is built in practice. The aim of this mixed methods thesis is to investigate what influences the creation of new active living infrastructure across different contexts. It also explores the value of different methods to demonstrate impacts of new walking and cycling infrastructure. The first two studies are qualitative investigations exploring decision-making for active living infrastructure across three areas of England and in Jamaica. These involve semi-structured interviews with public health practitioners, urban and transport planners, environmental and civil society stakeholders and councillors. I then synthesise the findings from these studies to gain additional insights from across different country contexts. Building on the qualitative study findings, I investigate quantitatively the association of context with use, users and benefit-cost ratios of new walking and cycling infrastructure, using repeat cross-sectional data from 84 new walking and cycling schemes in the United Kingdom (Sustrans’ Connect2 programme). I also explore the association between use and physical activity using pragmatic monitoring data from Connect2 alongside more scientifically rigorous longitudinal cohort data from three of those schemes (the iConnect study). My final qualitative study follows on to investigate issues about perceptions of contextual relevance of case study examples. This involves semi-structured interviews with a sub-sample of participants from the first England qualitative study, using Connect2 walking and cycling route examples and results from my quantitative analysis as discussion prompts. I identified three themes in this thesis: how to bridge the gap between policy and practice for creating active living infrastructure; issues of inequality; and synthesising evaluations across contexts. I find that the benefits of active living infrastructure can be under-valued and suggest that formal and informal roles can facilitate sharing of believable stories, including case studies, to influence decision-makers. Whilst new walking and cycling infrastructure is associated with large relative increases in pedestrians and cyclists, and increases in physical activity, lack of monitoring and evaluation, reliance on market forces, and views on individual agency may be detrimental to tackling inequality. Greater collaboration between public health practitioners and non-health sectors could emphasise multi-sectoral outcomes of active living infrastructure, including wider economic impacts.Funding was provided by the Medical Research Council [grant number MC_UU_12015/6]. The work was undertaken by the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence. Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged

Dynamic Web Services Composition

Emerging web services technology has introduced the concept of autonomic interoperability and portability between services. The number of online services has increased dramatically with many duplicating similar functionality and results. Composing online services to solve user needs is a growing area of research. This entails designing systems which can discover participating services and integrate these according to the end user requirements. This thesis proposes a Dynamic Web Services Composition (DWSC) process that is based upon consideration of previously successful attempts in this area, in particular utilizing AI-planning based solutions. It proposes a unique approach for service selection and dynamic web service composition by exploring the possibility of semantic web usability and its limitations. It also proposes a design architecture called Optimal Synthesis Plan Generation framework (OSPG), which supports the composition process through the evaluation of all available solutions (including all participating single and composite services). OSPG is designed to take into account user preferences, which supports optimality and robustness of the output plan. The implementation of OSPG will be con�gured and tested via division of search criteria in di�erent modes thereby locating the best plan for the user. The services composition and discovery-based model is evaluated via considering a range of criteria, such as scope, correctness, scalability and versatility metrics