The Critical Role of Public Charging Infrastructure

Editors: Peter Fox-Penner, PhD, Z. Justin Ren, PhD, David O. JermainA decade after the launch of the contemporary global electric vehicle (EV) market, most cities face a major challenge preparing for rising EV demand. Some cities, and the leaders who shape them, are meeting and even leading demand for EV infrastructure. This book aggregates deep, groundbreaking research in the areas of urban EV deployment for city managers, private developers, urban planners, and utilities who want to understand and lead change

Literature Review of Papers relevant to the topic of development impacts and economic evaluation methods of High-Speed Rail (HSR)

With HSR continuing to the target of investments around the world, with even the United States elevating the place of HSR on the public agenda, we thought this compendium of summaries of references on HSR and related topics would be of value. We begin with references on transportation investment and economic development in general. Then we consider the case of HSR and economic development on the local and urban as well as the national regional levels, Some references on economic geography and disparities among regions are included. We conclude with references for demand forecasting and some general references in the HSR field

Design and Analysis of Vehicle Sharing Programs: A Systems Approach

Transit, touted as a solution to urban mobility problems, cannot match the addictive flexibility of the automobile. 86% of all trips in the U.S. are in personal vehicles. A more recent approach to reduce automobile dependence is through the use of Vehicle Sharing Programs (VSPs). A VSP involves a fleet of vehicles located strategically at stations across the transportation network. In its most flexible form, users are free to check out vehicles at any station and return the vehicle at a station close to their destination. Vehicle fleets are comprised of bicycles, cars or electric vehicles. Such systems offer innovative solutions to the larger mobility problem and can have positive impacts on the transportation system as a whole by reducing urban congestion. This dissertation employs a network modeling framework to quantitatively design and operate VSPs. At the strategic level, the problem of determining the optimal VSP configuration is studied. A bilevel optimization model and associated solution methods are developed and implemented for a large-scale case study in Washington D.C. The model explicitly considers the intermodalism, and views the VSP as a `last-mile' connection of an existing transit network. At the operational level, by transferring control of vehicles to the user for improved system flexibility, exceptional logistical challenges are placed on operators who must ensure adequate vehicle stock (and parking slots) at each station to service all demand. Since demand in the short-term can be asymmetric (flow from one station to another is seldom equal to flow in the opposing direction), service providers need to redistribute vehicles to correct this imbalance. A chance-constrained program is developed that generates least-cost redistribution plans such that most demand in the near future is met. Since the program has a non-convex feasible region, two methods for its solution are developed. The model is applied to a real-world car-sharing system in Singapore where the value of accounting for inherent stochasticities is demonstrated. The framework is used to characterize the efficiency of Velib, a large-scale bicycle sharing system in Paris, France

BRICS Cities: Facts & Analysis 2016

BRICS Cities: Facts & Analysis is a compendium of research produced through a partnership between the South African Cities Network (SACN) and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand. It presents key general and thematic descriptive and comparative information about urban growth and development in the five BRICS states: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The comparative analysis includes a section relating to cities in Africa, while the detailed Factsheets cover thirty-one of the largest BRICS cities. BRICS Cities provides a first-of-its-kind research base to inform ongoing sub-national BRICS research and policy consideration. Recent reports on urbanization point out that over the next 20-30 years, almost all of the expected growth in the world population will be concentrated in the urban areas of the less developed countries of which a significant 42% will occur in cities in BRICS countries. Despite the fact that the distribution of the urbanization figures will be highly unequal between the different countries, considering the currently high levels of urbanization in Russia and Brazil and the extremely low levels (just over 35%) in India, the realities of large scale urbanization can and no doubt will have substantial impacts on the material conditions of urban life, governance, service provision, social relations and the environment. There has also been, and will continue to be, the expansion of networks of all kinds far beyond designated urban boundaries. In some cases, these challenges and the expanding boundaries have been met with additional layers of government, innovations in policy-making, and the reconfiguring of relationships between urban actors. However little is known in a comparative sense around some of the most important sites and cities in the BRICS countries , and insufficient research has been undertaken to learn from the differences that have been identified. The SACN and SA&CP, in line with our mutual interest around the nature and shape of urbanization and urban processes in South Africa and in BRICS countries, have developed a compendium of comparable information around key cities in the BRICS countries. BRICS Cities will serve as a useful reference of important base line information but also offers comment on the state of key areas of shared concern: innovation-driven economies, transport and mobility, and green energy. Furthermore, the publication provides a careful analysis of these factors in a comparative and relational framing.AA2017https://www.wits.ac.za/archplan/research-entities/spatial-analysis-and-city-planning/featured-projects/brics-fact-sheet-book

The emergence of self-organisation in social systems: the case of the geographic industrial clusters

The objective of this work is to use complexity theory to propose a new interpretation of industrial clusters. Industrial clusters constitute a specific type of econosphere, whose driving principles are self-organisation, economies of diversity and a configuration that optimises the exploration of diversity starting from the configuration of connectivity of the system. This work shows the centrality of diversity by linking complexity theory (intended as "a method for understanding diversity"') to different concepts such as power law distributions, self-organisation, autocatalytic cycles and connectivity.I propose a method to distinguish self-organising from non self-organising agglomerations, based on the correlation between self-organising dynamics and power law network theories. Self-organised criticality, rank-size rule and scale-free networks theories become three aspects indicating a common underlying pattern, i.e. the edge of chaos dynamic. I propose a general model of development of industrial clusters, based on the mutual interaction between social and economic autocatalytic cycle. Starting from Kauffman's idea(^2) on the autocatalytic properties of diversity, I illustrate how the loops of the economies of diversity are based on the expansion of systemic diversity (product of diversity and connectivity). My thesis provides a way to measure systemic diversity. In particular I introduce the distinction between modular innovation at the agent level and architectural innovation at the network level and show that the cluster constitutes an appropriate organisational form to manage the tension and dynamics of simultaneous modular and architectural innovation. The thesis is structured around two propositions: 1. Self-organising systems are closer to a power law than hierarchical systems or aggregates (collection of parts). For industrial agglomerations (SLLs), the closeness to a power law is related to the degree of self-organisation present in the agglomeration, and emerges in the agglomeration’s structural and/or behavioural properties subject to self-organising dynamic.2. Self-organising systems maximise the product of diversity times connectivity at a rate higher than hierarchical systems

An evaluation for sustainable mobility extended by D numbers

How to evaluate the impact of transport measures on city sustainability effectively is still an open issue, and it can be abstracted as one of the multiple criteria decision making problems. In this paper, a new method based on D numbers is proposed to evaluate the sustainable mobility of city. D number is a new mathematical tool to represent and deal uncertain information. The property of integration of D numbers is employed to fusion information. A numerical example of carsharing demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method

Contested Niche Innovations in Transport: Experiences from the Inter-comunal Bicycle Sharing System in Santiago de Chile, 2011-2017

Significant new technological developments in transport are already part of our urban landscape, helped by trends in the globalisation of economic activities. Acknowledging that technology is a facilitator of key changes in urban mobility, this thesis examines the institutional context in which a new transport technology is deployed, highlighting concerns not only about possible failures of an ‘enabling state’, but also about the ‘enabling environment’ as a central policy issue. This perspective provides a suitable space to further discuss the increasing governance hybridity in deploying new technologies in transport, acknowledging that the balance of power appears to be shifting. This research seeks to analyse the role of decision-making processes in triggering transformative adaptations that account for a mobility justice transition towards more equitable and inclusive mobility landscapes. Empirically, the thesis presents a case study promoting utility cycling via the deployment of an inter-comunal Bicycle Sharing Scheme, comprising 14 comunas in Santiago, Chile’s capital city, a fragmented metropolitan area with high socio-spatial inequalities. This research approach combines quantitative and qualitative methods of data gathering and analysis. A survey of 343 current bike-hire users at the busiest stations in order to gauge the perceived benefits of such deployment was complemented by interviews with key decision-makers and direct observations of operational logistics in the field. Business model innovation and public tendering processes provided valuable insights into the decision-making process as a subject of analysis. Findings suggest that a mobility justice transition is a relational matter. Indeed, inter-governmental agreements and collaborative actions were crucial in challenging patterns of socio-spatial inequality and proved to be a transformative strategy for change. However, prospects for a radical transition towards greater mobility justice are mixed. In conclusion, partnerships supporting niche-innovations operate within norms, values and practices, which are socially and culturally conditioned, and systematically shaped by the actions of society. Unfolding this rationale and ‘working through’ tensions and synergies towards the search for a common interest on the basis of transparency, collaboration, trust and deliberation, there is potential for setting out a mobility justice transition pathway

Sustainable transformation of the mobility system : the interplay between mobility services and electric vehicles

The transport sector is the backbone to our economy and society. However, transport accounts for 24% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and is the largest emitting sector in many developed countries. While other sectors such as housing and industry have been able to reduce their emissions in recent decades, emissions from the transport sector are increasing substantially in some countries. One of the reasons we have not succeeded in reducing transport-related GHG emissions is the increasing share of larger and more powerful vehicles in new car registrations. It is estimated that the rise of sport-utility-vehicles (SUVs) and large cars just about cancel the emission reductions we would have acquired from the increasing adoption of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Other externalities are often neglected, such as increases in pedestrian fatalities and particulate matter emissions that are harmful to health. To counteract these negative externalities, scholars suggest spurring the adoption of BEVs. BEVs can drastically decrease GHG emissions from a lifecycle perspective (cradle to grave) compared to conventional cars fuelled by gasoline and diesel, if the electricity used for charging the BEV stem from renewable energy sources, e.g., solar and wind. Yet, simply replacing conventional cars with large BEVs could lead to potential problems such as increased GHGs and other toxic emissions for the production of large batteries, raw material depletion and supply-chain shortages, increased particulate matter emissions, increased accident severity and increased land use. A small BEV with a usable range of 250km is capable to satisfy more than 96% of trips per year on average, without the need for recharging during the day, given that one could charge the BEV at home. Hence, the number of times per year, where one would need to opt for an alternative is rare. The occasional long-range and special purpose trips (e.g., including large luggage) could be conducted by emerging mobility services like carsharing, car-rental, public transport or the convenient integration of these mobility services in one app, called Mobility as a Service (MaaS). If people would switch from owning a large car to a smaller BEV, capable to satisfy almost all trips and combine it with the occasional use of mobility service, substantial sustainability benefits could be possible. In this thesis, I investigate these alternative mobility lifestyles to owning a large car by conducting several choice experiments within the Swiss Household Energy Demand Survey in 2018 and 2020. In the first contribution, I investigate the challenges and needs of Swiss households in using MaaS for commuting, weekday leisure and weekend trips. The results underline the importance of experience with mobility services like carsharing and public transport, which increases the openness to use MaaS. The needs in using MaaS differ regarding the trip purpose, where fast transfer times and low price are important for commuting, and luggage carrying possibilities and flexibility are important for leisure trips. Policies directly addressing consumers, e.g., increasing fuel levies, vehicle import restrictions and a ban of non-electric vehicles in the city centre, were found to significantly increase the openness to use MaaS. This could be specifically relevant for the hard-to reach groups, i.e., frequent car users. In the second contribution, I directly investigate the effect from experience with carsharing on the likelihood to opt for a micro to mid-sized BEV as the next car replacement for Swiss households. By controlling for a large set of potential influential variables like socio-demographics, mobility characteristics, attitudes, and values, I find a significant correlation between carsharing experience and likelihood to choose a micro to mid-sized BEV for people living in the countryside and agglomerations. This finding suggests that owning a small BEV in combination with mobility services could be marketed especially to people who live outside the city and rely on a car. I am the first to find an additional potential sustainable effect resulting from experience with carsharing, that is, deciding to own a smaller car due to the certainty of having access to long-distance and specialized vehicles when needed. In the third contribution, I investigate the probability of Swiss households to choose a mobility lifestyle comprising the ownership of a small BEV in combination with mobility services for long-range trips. By including different push and pull measures as treatments, I find that providing charging at home and at work can significantly increase the probability to switch from previously owning a conventional car to owning a small BEV and using carsharing, car-rental and public transport for occasional long-range trips, especially for households that currently own large cars. The provision of carsharing and car-rental close to the place of residents increases the openness to switch as well. By combining secured charging at home and at work with a 50% fuel tax, up to 51% of conventional car-owning households would switch to own a small BEV and occasional use mobility services for long-range trips. Two conclusions for society, mobility planners, and policy makers emerge from my findings. First, experience with carsharing can encourage willingness to use MaaS, as well as the purchase of a small BEV. Second, a large proportion of households with conventional vehicles could be convinced to switch to a small BEV and combine it with mobility services through a combination of push and pull measures. The work can serve as a guide on how to curb or stop the trend towards ever larger cars and boost the acceptance and attractiveness of BEVs and mobility services alike