How to monitor sustainable mobility in cities? Literature review in the frame of creating a set of sustainable mobility indicators

The role of sustainable mobility and its impact on society and the environment is evident and recognized worldwide. Nevertheless, although there is a growing number of measures and projects that deal with sustainable mobility issues, it is not so easy to compare their results and, so far, there is no globally applicable set of tools and indicators that ensure holistic evaluation and facilitate replicability of the best practices. In this paper, based on the extensive literature review, we give a systematic overview of relevant and scientifically sound indicators that cover different aspects of sustainable mobility that are applicable in different social and economic contexts around the world. Overall, 22 sustainable mobility indicators have been selected and an overview of the applied measures described across the literature review has been presented

Selective Screening of Rail Passengers, MTI 06-07

The threat of another major terrorist attack in the United States remains high, with the greatest danger coming from local extremists inspired by events in the Middle East. Although the United States removed the Taliban government and destroyed al Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan, events in Europe and elsewhere have shown that the terrorist network leadership remains determined to carry out further attacks and is capable of doing so. Therefore, the United States must systematically conduct research on terrorist strikes against transportation targets to distill lessons learned and determine the best practices for deterrence, response, and recovery. Those best practices must be taught to transportation and security professionals to provide secure surface transportation for the nation. Studying recent incidents in Europe and Asia, along with other research, will help leaders in the United States learn valuable lessons—from preventing attacks, to response and recovery, to addressing the psychological impacts of attacks to business continuity. Timely distillations of the lessons learned and best practices developed in other countries, once distributed to law enforcement, first responders, and rail- and subway-operating transit agencies, could result in the saving of American lives. This monograph focuses on the terrorist risks confronting public transportation in the United States—especially urban mass transit—and explores how different forms of passenger screening, and in particular, selective screening, can best be implemented to reduce those risks

Enhancing Cyberspace Monitoring in the United States Aviation Industry: A Multi-Layered Approach for Addressing Emerging Threats

This research project examined the cyberspace domain in the United States (U.S.) aviation industry from many different angles. The research involved learning about the U.S. aviation cyberspace environment, the landscape of cyber threats, new technologies like 5G and smart airports, cybersecurity frameworks and best practices, and the use of aviation cyberspace monitoring capabilities. The research looked at how vulnerable the aviation industry is from cyber-attacks, analyzed the possible effects of cyber-attacks on the industry, and suggests ways to improve the industry\u27s cybersecurity posture. The project\u27s main goal was to protect against possible cyber-attacks and make sure that the aviation industry is safe and secure

Vehicular Networks for Combating a Worldwide Pandemic: Preventing the Spread of COVID-19

As a worldwide pandemic, the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) has caused serious restrictions in people's social life, along with the loss of lives, the collapse of economies and the disruption of humanitarian aids. Despite the advance of technological developments, we, as researchers, have witnessed that several issues need further investigation for a better response to a pandemic outbreak. With this motivation, researchers recently started developing ideas to stop or at least reduce the spread of the pandemic. While there have been some prior works on wireless networks for combating a pandemic scenario, vehicular networks and their potential bottlenecks have not yet been fully examined. This article provides an extensive discussion on vehicular networking for combating a pandemic. We provide the major applications of vehicular networking for combating COVID-19 in public transportation, in-vehicle diagnosis, border patrol and social distance monitoring. Next, we identify the unique characteristics of the collected data in terms of privacy, flexibility and coverage, then highlight corresponding future directions in privacy preservation, resource allocation, data caching and data routing. We believe that this work paves the way for the development of new products and algorithms that can facilitate the social life and help controlling the spread of the pandemic.Comment: 8pages5figure

Airports and Emergency Planning Measures Implemented to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19 and their Effectiveness

Airports are subject to numerous situations that can disrupt their normal operations. Given the impossibility of preventing disruptions, especially those of natural origin, emergency and contingency plans are the best tool airports have to react effectively and quickly to any event. In late 2019, emerged an infectious disease of uncertain cause named COVID-19. The high rate of transmissibility and the increasing number of cases worldwide forced governments to implement measures to restrict movement, such as confinements or border closures. These measures had a more than significant impact on the aeronautical sector, which was one of the most affected. Record lows were thus recorded in the number of flights made, leading to historic losses throughout aviation. In order to analyse the implementation of measures against COVID-19, interviews were conducted with experts as well as surveys of the general public (those who had travelled by air in 2021). Through this data collection, interesting conclusions were drawn, such as the fact that the most efficient measure was the mandatory use of masks, which was widely adopted worldwide, and the least cost-efficient measure was the temperature plug, which was eventually abolished at most airports over time. Although no single measure on its own was efficient enough to deal with the pandemic, tiered mitigation was considered efficient. Although there were peculiarities at each airport when the measures were implemented, there was a normalization of measures over time. Finally, although most airports already had sections in their contingency/emergency plans that dealt with "public health emergencies", they were not prepared to deal with a pandemic crisis like COVID-19.Os aeroportos estão sujeitos a inúmeras situações que podem vir a perturbar o seu habitual funcionamento. Dada a impossibilidade de impedir disrupções, em especial as de origem natural, os planos de emergência e de contingência são a melhor ferramenta que os aeroportos possuem para reagir de uma forma eficaz a qualquer acontecimento. No final de 2019, surgiu uma doença infeciosa de causa incerta denominada de COVID19. A elevada taxa de transmissibilidade e o número crescente de casos em todo o mundo forçaram os governos a implementar medidas para restringir a circulação, tais como confinamentos ou encerramentos de fronteiras. Estas medidas tiveram um impacto mais do que significativo no sector aeronáutico. Assim, registaram-se mínimos históricos no número de voos efetuados, levando a perdas históricas em toda a aviação. A fim de analisar a implementação de medidas contra a COVID-19, foram realizadas entrevistas a peritos, bem como inquéritos ao público em geral (aqueles que tinham viajado de avião em 2021). Através desta recolha de dados foram tiradas conclusões interessantes, tais como o facto de a medida mais eficiente ter sido a utilização obrigatória de máscaras e a medida menos eficiente em termos de custos ter sido a tomada de temperatura, que acabou por ser abolida com passar do tempo. Embora nenhuma medida por si só fosse suficientemente eficiente para lidar com a pandemia, a atenuação por níveis foi considerada eficiente. Embora houvesse peculiaridades em cada aeroporto aquando da implementação das medidas, houve uma normalização das medidas ao longo do tempo. Finalmente, embora a maioria dos aeroportos já apresentasse secções nos seus planos de contingência/emergência que tratavam de "emergências de saúde pública", não estavam preparados para lidar com uma crise pandémica como a COVID-19