24,023 research outputs found

    Understanding Transit Ridership Demand for a Multi-Destination, Multimodal Transit Network in an American Metropolitan Area, Research Report 11-06

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    This study examines the factors underlying transit demand in the multi-destination, integrated bus and rail transit network for Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta provides an opportunity to explore the consequences of a multi-destination transit network for bus patrons (largely transit-dependent riders) and rail patrons (who disproportionately illustrate choice rider characteristics). Using data obtained from the 2000 Census, coupled with data obtained from local and regional organizations in the Atlanta metropolitan area, we estimate several statistical models that explain the pattern of transit commute trips across the Atlanta metropolitan area. The models show that bus riders and rail riders are different, with bus riders exhibiting more transit-dependent characteristics and rail riders more choice rider characteristics. However, both types of riders value many of the same attributes of transit service quality (including shorter access and egress times and more direct trips) and their use of transit is influenced by many of the same variables (including population and employment). At the same time, the factors that influence transit demand vary depending on the type of travel destination the rider wishes to reach, including whether it is the central business district (CBD) or a more auto-oriented, suburban destination. The results of the study offer new insights into the nature of transit demand in a multi-destination transit system and provide lessons for agencies seeking to increase ridership among different ridership groups. The results suggest that more direct transit connections to dispersed employment centers, and easier transfers to access such destinations, will lead to higher levels of transit use for both transit-dependent and choice riders. The results also show that the CBD remains an important transit destination for rail riders but not for their bus rider counterparts. Certain types of transit-oriented development (TOD) also serve as significant producers and attractors of rail transit trips

    Geospatial analysis and living urban geometry

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    This essay outlines how to incorporate morphological rules within the exigencies of our technological age. We propose using the current evolution of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) technologies beyond their original representational domain, towards predictive and dynamic spatial models that help in constructing the new discipline of "urban seeding". We condemn the high-rise tower block as an unsuitable typology for a living city, and propose to re-establish human-scale urban fabric that resembles the traditional city. Pedestrian presence, density, and movement all reveal that open space between modernist buildings is not urban at all, but neither is the open space found in today's sprawling suburbs. True urban space contains and encourages pedestrian interactions, and has to be designed and built according to specific rules. The opposition between traditional self-organized versus modernist planned cities challenges the very core of the urban planning discipline. Planning has to be re-framed from being a tool creating a fixed future to become a visionary adaptive tool of dynamic states in evolution

    Knowing Your Population: Privacy-Sensitive Mining of Massive Data

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    Location and mobility patterns of individuals are important to environmental planning, societal resilience, public health, and a host of commercial applications. Mining telecommunication traffic and transactions data for such purposes is controversial, in particular raising issues of privacy. However, our hypothesis is that privacy-sensitive uses are possible and often beneficial enough to warrant considerable research and development efforts. Our work contends that peoples behavior can yield patterns of both significant commercial, and research, value. For such purposes, methods and algorithms for mining telecommunication data to extract commonly used routes and locations, articulated through time-geographical constructs, are described in a case study within the area of transportation planning and analysis. From the outset, these were designed to balance the privacy of subscribers and the added value of mobility patterns derived from their mobile communication traffic and transactions data. Our work directly contrasts the current, commonly held notion that value can only be added to services by directly monitoring the behavior of individuals, such as in current attempts at location-based services. We position our work within relevant legal frameworks for privacy and data protection, and show that our methods comply with such requirements and also follow best-practice

    Marketing of Tourism Destination in the Context of Tiger Safari

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    Tiger tourism plays a significant role in the overall scenario of Indian tourism. The forest destination managers face a major challenge in satisfying their visitors since tigers are elusive by nature and most of the time tourists return dissatisfied without sighting a tiger after a forest safari. This paper is the first scientific study of its kind based on empirical data in the context of tiger tourism and proposed a model to identify the optimum path in the forest with a higher probability of tiger sighting

    Local movement: agent-based models of pedestrian flows

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    Modelling movement within the built environment has hitherto been focused on rather coarse spatial scales where the emphasis has been upon simulating flows of traffic between origins and destinations. Models of pedestrian movement have been sporadic, based largely on finding statistical relationships between volumes and the accessibility of streets, with no sustained efforts at improving such theories. The development of object-orientated computing and agent-based models which have followed in this wake, promise to change this picture radically. It is now possible to develop models simulating the geometric motion of individual agents in small-scale environments using theories of traffic flow to underpin their logic. In this paper, we outline such a model which we adapt to simulate flows of pedestrians between fixed points of entry - gateways - into complex environments such as city centres, and points of attraction based on the location of retail and leisure facilities which represent the focus of such movements. The model simulates the movement of each individual in terms of five components; these are based on motion in the direction of the most attractive locations, forward movement, the avoidance of local geometric obstacles, thresholds which constrain congestion, and movement which is influenced by those already moving towards various locations. The model has elements which enable walkers to self-organise as well as learn from their geometric experiences so far. We first outline the structure of the model, present a computable form, and illustrate how it can be programmed as a variant of cellular automata. We illustrate it using three examples: its application to an idealised mall where we show how two key components - local navigation of obstacles and movement towards points of global locational attraction - can be parameterised, an application to the more complex town centre of Wolverhampton (in the UK West Midlands) where the paths of individual walkers are used to explore the veracity of the model, and finally it application to the Tate Gallery complex in central London where the focus is on calibrating the model by letting individual agents learn from their experience of walking within the environment

    Measuring the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on mobility: A real case study from Italy

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    When COVID-19 first struck the provinces of Northern Italy in early 2020 (especially in Lombardy and in EmiliaRomagna), the conditions there made it a perfect storm. The virus outbreak spread with an unusual violence (in the period from late February to April 2020), with a catastrophic toll in terms of human deaths. Taken by surprise, Italy mandated a complete nation-wide lockdown, successively resorting to ministerial decrees alleviating and postponing the restrictions. Now more than ever, there is an increased awareness on ICT used to combat the pandemic. In this article, we present a quantitative analysis evidencing the impact of restrictions on mobility. To this end, we rely on a vehicular mobility dataset confined in the downtown area of Bologna, Italy. Pursuing the objective, we propose a modified version of a state-of-theart data mining algorithm, allowing us to efficiently identify and quantify mobility flows. The proposal, if combined with additional data sources, could allow for a fine-grained and timely decision making, combating the pandemic

    TCWP Newsletter No. 370

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    Gettysburg: Our College\u27s Magazine Winter 2015

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    Table of Contents: From the President Janet Morgan Riggs \u2777 Scholarship Expands Access to STEM Fields (Diane Allwardt Trobaugh \u2767) Office Hours: Prof. Florence Ramond Jurney Budding Entrepreneur Helps Buyers Find Sellers (Wei Xiong \u2715, Prof. Cliff Presser) Board of Trustees Appoints Two (James Banks Jr. \u2780, Troy Datcher \u2790) The 411: Lauren Wise Bright \u2790 Bullets Play LAX for Turkey and Thailand (Jake Adoni \u2716, Reed Barbe \u2716, Bijan Firouzan \u2715) The Changing Future of Farming (Enzo Pinga \u2711) Frank Arbogast \u2716 Creating a Culture of Success Beth O\u27Boyle \u2798 Coach Credits Current and Past Bullets for NCAA Bid (Matt Garrett) Lincoln Trophy and F&M History Media Notes Conversations No Major No Problem: Gettysburg Grads Find Liberal Arts Education is Perfect Preparation for Careers in Communications Nikki Rhoads Contemporary Impressions (Geoffrey Jackson \u2791) Connecting the Dots: How a Dead African Rhino is a Threat to U.S. National Security (Prof. Shirley Anne Warshaw, Keith J. Masback \u2787) Better Fuel for the Fire: Improving Global Health One Hearth at a Time (Brady Luceno \u2708, Prof. Lisa Portmess) What Students Do (Prof. Steve Siviy) What Makes Gettysburg Great (Prof. William D. Bowman) Work That Makes a Difference (Benjamin Constable \u2713) Class Notes Life Unexpected Kathryn Rossetter \u2773https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/gburgmag/1003/thumbnail.jp
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