Multimodal Access to Minor Places in Heritage-Rich Landscapes: GIS Mapping to Define Slow-Tourism Routes from the Stations in the Railway Networks in-between Turin and Milan

The extraordinary richness of the natural and built heritage, widespread in the landscape which surrounds infrastructures, allows searching for new ways to access the places in a more sustainable way, by exploiting multimodal accessibility between train and bike. The current research shows how the territories in-between the cities of Turin and Milan, characterized by a complex historical landscape, could be enhanced in terms of sustainable tourism by exploiting the potential of the existing railway network and the widespread network of local roads, which make many unique places in these territories easily accessible. A GIS method based on a quantitative approach has been defined, to perform the spatial analysis by mapping the most significant nodes in the railway network, in the most attractive heritage areas localized in the surrounding landscape of infrastructures, to trace slow-tourism routes which can be used both by inhabitants and tourists to move across places in a more sustainable way. The research finds the most attractive heritage areas in the surroundings of local railways, and maps slow-tourism routes that connect local railway stations to surrounding heritage, within 15 min of cycling. The GIS-based method can support decision makers in the definition of new territorial development strategies, with the aim of enhancing the livelihood of the inner and fragile areas of the country that are crossed by the railways

Open-Data and Data Acquisition for Smart Cities and Urban Mobility Studies: Potential Approaches and Current Challenges

The experience of urban users is shaped by cities—by their shapes, components, and how they function. An immense quantity of data is included in the process of how the city functions, how it affects its inhabitants, and how its residents view its components. Researchers need an extensive number of datasets on land use (type & quantification) and geometric dimensions of the built environment (3D, form, & pattern) to fully grasp this relationship. In addition to the need to collect data about users’ experience via using web-based/location-based surveys. The acquisition, exploration, and analysis of these datasets contributes to enabling a better understanding, operation, and monitoring of the city’s systems. Thus, facilitating the design, implementation, and operation of functional, efficient, and reliable smart cities. This paper focuses on transportation and mobility, and how can open-data sources be utilized for data acquisition for urban mobility studies. This highlights possible, simple, and accessible open-data acquisition tools for urban planners. It further outlines the limitations and challenges for data acquisition related to the global south context. The main aim is to explore the potential of integrating different open-data sources, web-based tools, and data analytics in defining travel time map and accessibility with respect to modality of mobility. It examines the accessibility, availability, and obtainability of data from these open-data sources (i.e., OpenStreetMap, Uber Movement, Jupyter Notebook) to be further used in urban studies, specifically in the context of the selected case study area. An exploratory approach is adopted to perform an analysis between the built environment and travel time during mobility, using Isochrone map acquired from open-data sources. The aim is to delineate an approach that could be adopted by urban planners who are not well acquainted with open-data sources, python scripts and codes. This approach could be utilized, modified, and replicated in further urban studies related to other regional contexts similar to the Egyptian context

Reviewing the Use of Geographic Information System (GIS) to Measure Sustainable Urban Transport Performance

The purpose of this paper is to show how Geographical Information Systems (GIS) used to measure the performance of Urban Transport Sustainability. The first, this paper discusses about understanding about transport performance and how to measure it. The second, explore about sustainability in urban transport. The third, defines GIS and its possible uses in the sustainable urban transport performance. The relevant GIS functions have also been explained. The GIS models are explored to assist urban transport planner to measure sustainability in urban transport

Urban policies and planning approaches for a safer and climate friendlier mobility in cities: Strategies, initiatives and some analysis

How can urban policies and planning approaches help in achieving a safer mobility and carbon reduction in the transport sector? The attention of planners and policy makers towards the promotion of sustainability and reduction of environmental impacts has grown in recent years. This paper investigates the role that Urban Planning plays in the long term towards a safer and climate friendlier mobility, highlighting the need for integrated approaches gathering spatial planning and mobility management. After a review of several urban policies and planning strategies, initiatives, and approaches, mainly based on the urban scale, the paper presents an urban regeneration case study leading to an increase of pedestrian accessibility at the neighborhood level. This can be seen as a support tool to foster sustainable, safe, and climate friendly mobility in cities. The results of the performed analysis show a dependency of accessibility from two different factors: the distribution of services and the capillarity of the soft mobility network, which can contribute to creating a more walkable space

An efficient solution for one-to-many multi-modal journey planning

We study the one-to-many journey planning problem in multi-modal transportation networks consisting of a public transit network and an additional, non-schedule-based mode of transport. Given a departure time and a single source vertex, we aim to compute optimal journeys to all vertices in a set of targets, optimizing both travel time and the number of transfers used. Solving this problem yields a crucial component in many other problems, such as efficient point-of-interest queries, computation of isochrones, or multi-modal traffic assignments. While many algorithms for multi-modal journey planning exist, none of them are applicable to one-to-many scenarios. Our solution is based on the combination of two state-of-the-art approaches: ULTRA, which enables efficient journey planning in multi-modal networks, but only for one-to-one queries, and (R)PHAST, which enables efficient one-to-many queries, but only in time-independent networks. Similarly to ULTRA, our new approach can be combined with any existing public transit algorithm that allows a search to all stops, which we demonstrate for CSA and RAPTOR. For small to moderately sized target sets, the resulting algorithms are nearly as fast as the pure public transit algorithms they are based on. For large target sets, we achieve a speedup of up to 7 compared to a naive one-to-many extension of a state-of-the-art multi-modal approach

An Efficient Solution for One-To-Many Multi-Modal Journey Planning

We study the one-to-many journey planning problem in multi-modal transportation networks consisting of a public transit network and an additional, non-schedule-based mode of transport. Given a departure time and a single source vertex, we aim to compute optimal journeys to all vertices in a set of targets, optimizing both travel time and the number of transfers used. Solving this problem yields a crucial component in many other problems, such as efficient point-of-interest queries, computation of isochrones, or multi-modal traffic assignments. While many algorithms for multi-modal journey planning exist, none of them are applicable to one-to-many scenarios. Our solution is based on the combination of two state-of-the-art approaches: ULTRA, which enables efficient journey planning in multi-modal networks, but only for one-to-one queries, and (R)PHAST, which enables efficient one-to-many queries, but only in time-independent networks. Similarly to ULTRA, our new approach can be combined with any existing public transit algorithm that allows a search to all stops, which we demonstrate for CSA and RAPTOR. For small to moderately sized target sets, the resulting algorithms are nearly as fast as the pure public transit algorithms they are based on. For large target sets, we achieve a speedup of up to 7 compared to a naive one-to-many extension of a state-of-the-art multi-modal approach

A multi-scalar analysis of European cities

In this article, we observe existing links between sustainable development and cities’ structural features. First, we identify cluster of cities that are homogenous in structural terms. We then adopt a multiscalar perspective. We compare the results at different territorial scales (LAU-2 and NUTS-3 level). When the sustainable development of the clusters is observed, a clear ‘geography of resource exploitation’ emerges. Then, as a possible response to these problems, we suggest a tool adopted by planners: that is, polycentrism. We look upon it as a possible mode for the governance of networks of medium-sized cities. In particular, we analyse the structural drivers that explain potential for polycentric integration.Medium-sized cities; polycentrism; sustainable development; cluster analysis

A Multi-Scalar Analysis of European Cities

Medium-sized European cities are facing serious problems in terms of the exploitation of local resources (land, water, air). In this article, we observe existing links between sustainable development and cities’ economic and structural features. We adopt a multi-scalar perspective, since the theme of sustainable development involves both urban areas and the wider regions surrounding them. First, we identify clusters of urban areas that are homogenous in structural terms and we then compare these results at different territorial scales. When the sustainable development of the clusters is observed, a clear ‘geography of resource exploitation’ emerges, consistent with both urban economic and environmental indicators. Then, as a possible response to these problems, we suggest a typical tool adopted by planners: that is, polycentrism. Rather than considering it as a simple morphological feature of European urban systems, we look upon it as a possible mode for the governance of networks of medium-sized cities. In the last section of the paper, we analyse the economic and structural drivers that explain potential for polycentric integrationpolycentrism; medium-sized cities; sustainable development; cluster analysis;

Scalable Exact Visualization of Isocontours in Road Networks via Minimum-Link Paths

Isocontours in road networks represent the area that is reachable from a source within a given resource limit. We study the problem of computing accurate isocontours in realistic, large-scale networks. We propose isocontours represented by polygons with minimum number of segments that separate reachable and unreachable components of the network. Since the resulting problem is not known to be solvable in polynomial time, we introduce several heuristics that run in (almost) linear time and are simple enough to be implemented in practice. A key ingredient is a new practical linear-time algorithm for minimum-link paths in simple polygons. Experiments in a challenging realistic setting show excellent performance of our algorithms in practice, computing near-optimal solutions in a few milliseconds on average, even for long ranges