The potential of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) in future transport systems

As transport systems are pushed to the limits in many cities, governments have tried to resolve problems of traffic and congestion by increasing capacity. Miller (2013) contends the need to identify new capabilities (instead of capacity) of the transport infrastructure in order to increase efficiency without extending the physical infrastructure. Kenyon and Lyons (2003) identified integrated traveller information as a facilitator for better transport decisions. Today, with further developments in the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and a greater disposition by the public to provide volunteered geographic information (VGI), the potential of information is not only integrated across modes but also user-generated, real-time and available on smartphones anywhere. This geographic information plays today an important role in sectors such as politics, businesses and entertainment, and presumably this would extend to transport in revealing people’s preferences for mobility and therefore be useful for decision-making. The widespread availability of networks and smartphones offer new opportunities supported by apps and crowdsourcing through social media such as the successful traffic and navigation app Waze, car sharing programmes such as Zipcar, and ride sharing systems such as Uber. This study aims to develop insights into the potential of governments to use voluntary (crowdsourced) geographic information effectively to achieve sustainable mobility. A review of the literature and existing technology informs this article. Further research into this area is identified and presented at the end of the paper.peer-reviewe

Social networking and dental care: State of the art and analysis of the impact on dentists, dental practices and their patients

Health Social networking sites offering search, reviews and recommendation are gaining popularity. This paper reviews the most popular social networking sites related to dental care. Social networks such as DrOogle and Yelp enable their users to review and rate their dentists and dental practices. Such information is then used to rank and recommend dentists or dental practices to new users/patients. This paper compares the dental care social networking sites in terms of their features and criteria supported for search, reviews and recommendations of dentists or dental practices. Mismatches between features and criteria among different dental care reviews sites are identified, which may cause inconsistency in the recommendations in the dental care. Therefore, this paper proposes a new framework for dynamic dental care recommendation system which takes both local (personalised) and global (crowdsourced) trust into account. It analyses the impact of current social networks on dentists, dental practices and their patients. Finally, it identifies the open issues and challenges that need to be addressed to design a trustworthy recommendation system for both the dental professionals and their patients

Digital co-construction of relational values : understanding the role of social media for sustainability

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552There is a deeply relational aspect to the systems people employ for sorting through and prioritizing plural values assigned to social-ecological interactions. Spurred by interpersonal relationships and adhesion to societal core values, such as justice and reciprocity, relational values go beyond instrumental and intrinsic approaches to understanding human behaviour vis-à-vis the environment. Currently, this relational dimension of values is entering the spotlight of the cultural ecosystem services (CES) literature focusing on non-material benefits and values people derive from ecosystems, such as aesthetics and sense of place. Relational values foster reflections on appropriateness and morality of preferences and respective behaviours in contributing to collective flourishment across space and time, holding implications for social-ecological justice and sustainability. Recently, several studies explored the potential of using social media data for assessing values ascribed to CES, but did not look at how this emerging approach could contribute to an enhanced understanding of relational values. In order to take up this goal, we conducted a systematic review, screening 140 publications and selecting 29 as relevant for exploring the extent to which relational CES values are inferable through social media. Our results show that social media data can reveal CES values' plural and relational dimension. Social media platforms, thus, can be understood as new arenas for the co-construction of values, where relational values stemming from social-ecological interactions are negotiated and defined. Yet, work on their implications for social-ecological justice and sustainability needs to be extended

Can providing safe cycling infrastructure encourage people to cycle more when it rains? The use of crowdsourced cycling data (Strava)

Many local authorities in the UK and other developed countries have spent a substantial amount of time and money providing safe cycling infrastructure to improve cycling environments. However, it is not clear whether these expensive physical investments are an effective strategy to encourage people to cycle more in cities where there is a high level of precipitation. The evidence is limited, partly due to data limitations. We used crowdsourced cycling data (taken from the Strava activity-tracking app) and fixed-effects panel regression models to investigate whether providing safe cycling infrastructure could be an effective way to overcome adverse weather conditions. We selected the city centre of Glasgow, Scotland because of the current size and scope of investments. We found that providing safe cycle paths could encourage people to cycle more, especially on dry days. However, findings suggested that rainy cities like Glasgow may not have realised the full benefits of safe cycling infrastructure because there are larger reductions in the volume of cycling on rainy days on these routes. Planners, especially from cities with a high level of precipitation, should consider how to improve cycle paths to overcome adverse weather and other policies (e.g., providing shower facilities at workplaces, incentives to cycle, etc.) to increase cyclists’ resilience to bad weather

Policy for sustainable entrepreneurship: a crowdsourced framework

Sustainable entrepreneurship—entrepreneurship with social and ecological gains as well as economic ones—has the potential to play a significant role in addressing societal and environmental challenges. However, sustainability and entrepreneurship have hitherto been addressed through separate policy regimes, and it is not clear how policymakers can encourage sustainable entrepreneurship specifically. The authors develop a policy framework for sustainable entrepreneurship, using an open innovation approach with policymakers, business executives, academics, entrepreneurs and other relevant actors, including an online crowdsourcing event with 150 participants. The framework incorporates five policy domains: creating awareness and skills; building networks; funding and investing; measuring impact and performance; and innovating government. The article proposes a modified version of the multi-level perspective (MLP) on how socio-technical transitions occur, since the findings suggest that policy can catalyze the facilitation and aggregation of innovations coming from the niche level, thereby evolving the socio-technical regime, in addition to the role of policy described in earlier work in stabilizing the socio-technical regime. Contributions to entrepreneurship policy literature include the policy domain of measuring impact and performance, as appropriate success measures are non-trivial in a triple bottom line environment, and the potential for open policy innovation in entrepreneurship policy. Contributions to sustainability policy literature include the requirements for support mechanisms and capacity building to empower individuals to contribute as innovators and entrepreneurs and not just consumers. The sustainable entrepreneurship framework can be applied by policymakers to develop context-specific policies: this is illustrated with a worked example of EU policy recommendations. The paper also outlines a method for crowdsourcing policy innovations

Policy for sustainable entrepreneurship: a crowdsourced framework

Sustainable entrepreneurship—entrepreneurship with social and ecological gains as well as economic ones—has the potential to play a significant role in addressing societal and environmental challenges. However, sustainability and entrepreneurship have hitherto been addressed through separate policy regimes, and it is not clear how policymakers can encourage sustainable entrepreneurship specifically. The authors develop a policy framework for sustainable entrepreneurship, using an open innovation approach with policymakers, business executives, academics, entrepreneurs and other relevant actors, including an online crowdsourcing event with 150 participants. The framework incorporates five policy domains: creating awareness and skills; building networks; funding and investing; measuring impact and performance; and innovating government. The article proposes a modified version of the multi-level perspective (MLP) on how socio-technical transitions occur, since the findings suggest that policy can catalyze the facilitation and aggregation of innovations coming from the niche level, thereby evolving the socio-technical regime, in addition to the role of policy described in earlier work in stabilizing the socio-technical regime. Contributions to entrepreneurship policy literature include the policy domain of measuring impact and performance, as appropriate success measures are non-trivial in a triple bottom line environment, and the potential for open policy innovation in entrepreneurship policy. Contributions to sustainability policy literature include the requirements for support mechanisms and capacity building to empower individuals to contribute as innovators and entrepreneurs and not just consumers. The sustainable entrepreneurship framework can be applied by policymakers to develop context-specific policies: this is illustrated with a worked example of EU policy recommendations. The paper also outlines a method for crowdsourcing policy innovations

Did safe cycling infrastructure still matter during a COVID-19 lockdown?

The UK government introduced strict measures (including asking people to work from home and a lockdown) to slow the spread of COVID-19 by limiting people’s movement. This led to substantial reductions in traffic, making roads much safer for cyclists. This provides a unique opportunity to study the role played by safe cycling infrastructure. Many UK cities have provided cycling infrastructure to improve safety and encourage cycling. However, access to safe cycling infrastructure varies across neighbourhoods, potentially contributing to inequality. Since roads became safer due to the unprecedented reduction in traffic during the lockdown, safe cycling infrastructure may not play a significant role during this period. On the other hand, safe cycling lanes are often connected to amenities, potentially attracting cyclists even if they confer no additional safety benefit. That is, connectivity might matter more than safety. In this study, we utilised crowdsourced cycling data and regression models to examine the extent to which cycling intensity for non-commuting purposes changes with different types of cycling infrastructure in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. In addition, we selected some areas with large increases in cycling intensity and examined the surrounding environments using Google Street View. Our results showed that non-commuting cycling activities increased significantly after the government interventions on both typical roads and safe cycling lanes while much higher increases were observed on safe cycling lanes than on other roads. A further analysis showed that there were large increases in cycling volumes on both typical roads and safe cycling lanes with good amenities and connectivity, highlighting the importance of these factors when building new cycling infrastructure. Since safe cycling lanes are not equally accessible to people, providing temporary cycling lanes during the pandemic considering these conditions could encourage people to cycle more, and thereby improve their health

Modelling Cyclists Route Choice Using Strava and OSMnx : A Case Study of the City of Glasgow

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Design processes of a citizen inquiry community

As with other online communities, it is important to design elements of citizen inquiry projects that will attract and engage members. This chapter describes the process of designing an online community for citizen inquiry. It builds on design principles of inquiry learning, citizen inquiry and other online communities. The ‘Weather-it’ citizen inquiry community is intended to engage and support people in initiating and joining sustainable citizen-led investigations. The findings indicate some successful mechanisms for the design of effective and sustainable citizen inquiry communities and ways to sustain them