Evaluation of the Warrington district CAB GP outreach project

This project report discusses the Warrington district CAB GP outreach project. The project was developed to limit the impact that social deprivation problems may have on health.Warrington Primary Care Trus

Usability of Urban Air Mobility: Quantitative and Qualitative Assessments of Usage in Emergency Situations

The purpose of these four studies was to determine participants’ willingness to support the use of urban air mobility (UAM) in response to natural disasters, along with the preferred locations to establish vertiports. Study 1 assessed the willingness to support using a mixed factorial design. The findings demonstrated strong, robust support for the use of UAM when responding to natural disasters. Study 2 worked to create and validate a scale that could assess vertiports\u27 current and proposed locations. The Vertiport Usability Scale was developed and shown to have strong psychometric properties to validly assess vertiport locations through a multi-stage process. Study 3 used the Vertiport Usability Scale to understand the most highly preferred locations for vertiports in three conditions from a multi-stage process: temporary disaster locations, permanent disaster locations, and permanent consumer locations. Study 4 was conducted using qualitative methods to complement the earlier quantitative approaches. Through an initial survey and follow-on interview, three themes emerged related to UAM in response to natural disasters and vertiports: 1) human involvement in UAM operations, 2) scenarios for usage, and 3) setup and deployment of vehicles

Understanding customers’ attitude and intention to use driverless cars

The use of driverless cars is a future trend in road transportation and set to improve quality of life. Although marketing studies on technology acceptance are abundant and cross a variety of contexts, few studies investigate thoroughly the key factors influencing customers’ intention to use, and explicitly demonstrate the mechanisms in which each factor affect the acceptance of driverless cars. This research adds new knowledge to the body of marketing literature and studies in technology acceptance towards driverless cars. Specifically, this study extends cognition-oriented theories by integrating factors such as perceived enjoyment and perceived societal benefits into the new model to explain how individual perceptions impact user attitude and intention to use driverless cars. The research further uses the habit literature and integrates the status quo bias perspective to hypothesise that in addition to cognitive factors, incumbent system habit as a subconscious source of inertia that contribute to the resistance of adopting driverless cars lies in the use of a traditional automobile vehicle. Drawing on qualitative evidence from 13 interviewees, the key themes that influence customers’ perceptions towards driverless cars are disclosed, including perceived travel efficiency, enjoyment, helpfulness, and societal benefits. On the other side, technological issues, hacking and privacy issues, laggard regulations and policies, and concerns about the deterioration in driving skills are barriers to customers’ intention to use. The proposed conceptual model is empirically assessed using data collected from 493 potential customers through an online survey. The results illustrate the significant influences, in descending order, of attitude, perceived enjoyment, concerns, perceived travel efficiency and gender on customers’ intention to use, and also confirm perceived enjoyment, perceived societal benefits and age as strong factors in consumers’ attitude toward driverless cars. Incumbent system habit influences two paths among variables: 1) dampens the positive relationship between attitude and intention to use, and 2) strengthens the negative relationship between concerns and intention to use. Attitude is verified as a mediator between the perceived enjoyment and intention to use. Age differences are also revealed. There are practical implications too for research and development managers in the manufacturing process, and for marketing managers in the retail market

The bicycle and the dream of a sustainable city: An explorative comparison of the image of bicycles in the mass-media and the general public

This paper explores the representation of the bicycle by comparing data from various mass media sources and the general public in Italy. In study 1, a number of commercial advertisements published on paper magazines and aired by the major TV channels, as well as 405 articles published by the major online newspapers were content analysed in order to identify the main concepts and evaluations characterising the representation of bikes in the media. In study 2, 94 Rome residents were interviewed on their beliefs regarding the pros and cons of using the bike in the city and their perceived social approval. Results showed several points of overlap between the two representations, although different themes and structures emerged as well

Evidences of lay people’s reasoning related to climate change: per country and cross country results

This deliverable is about lay citizens’ reasoning about sustainability, in particular environmental protection and climate change, in various consumption domains, and the relation of this reasoning to the day-to-day lives of the participants. It presents country and cross-country findings from all 18 STAVE trials conducted between May 2011 and February 2012 in all six PACHELBEL partner countries. Analyses demonstrate that participants in the STAVE trials predominantly display a clear awareness that citizen consumption as demonstrated in their everyday practices of energy use, mobility, waste etc. are strongly connected with issues of environmental sustainablility. The STAVE trials also demonstrated that to live sustainably is a daily challenge, and people are often not able to organize their everyday routines in an environmental-friendly manner. Frequently there is a gap between participants’ aspirations and their practical behaviours. Significantly, the group conversations enabled participants to become aware that the self-assessed soundness of their everyday lives in terms of sustainability was at variance from the actual impact of e.g. their energy use or or mobility practices

Does Canada Have a Problem with Occupational Fraud?

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are an important collective force in the Canadian economy, however the visibility and economic power of small businesses suffer due to their size and frequent turnover. When it comes to the issue of businesses being subject to occupational fraud, the moderate visibility of SMEs only contributes to the challenge of assessing the real scope of the problem. This paper seeks to examine the prevalence and types of occupational fraud experienced by Canadian SMEs as well as gathers information on prevention and detection methods used to safeguard against occupational fraud. That is done based on data compiled from a survey of 802 SMEs across Canada. The analysis shows that a substantial proportion of SMEs experience incidents of occupational fraud; however, the majority of SMEs are not fully prepared to respond to fraud. Furthermore, SMEs’ experience with and attitudes toward fraud vary noticeably with company characteristics, although a large proportion of SMEs believe risk to occupational fraud is low.Occupational fraud, fraud prevention, fraud detection, types of occupational fraud, Canadian small and medium businesses, employee fraud, internal fraud

Regulations to Respond to the Potential Benefits and Perils of SelfDriving Cars Analysis and Recommendations for Advancing Equity and Environmental Sustainability

The mobility system in the United States is unsafe, inequitable, and environmentally destructive. Most Americans rely on personally owned, individually occupied, and gas-powered cars—a status quo that leads to tens of thousands of people dying each year in collisions, creates barriers to employment and other opportunities for people of color and people with low incomes, and maintains a resource intensive transportation system that contributes to climate change and spurs sprawling land uses that destroy ecologies. Autonomous vehicles (AVs)—self-driving cars that can travel along publicly accessible streets some or all of the time without human involvement—could help mitigate these problems, if they are implemented in a thoughtful, well-regulated manner. However, if deployed haphazardly with inadequate oversight and regulation, they could produce even worse inequities than those caused by the current system.To evaluate the current landscape for AV deployment and use in the United States, we conducted a study focusing on automobile-sized AVs designed for passenger use as opposed to other types of AVs that could be used for public transit service or freight. Through a scholarship review, a scan of legislation nationwide, and interviews with stakeholders, we examine key potential benefits that AVs could generate, as well as the problems they could exacerbate. Carefully designed regulations could help ensure that these new technologies improve access to mobility and reduce pollution