Urban Street Networks and Sustainable Transportation

Urban street space is challenged with a variety of emerging usages and users, such as various vehicles with different speeds, passenger pick-up and drop-off by mobility services, increasing parking demand for a variety of private and shared vehicles, new powertrains (e.g., charging units), and new vehicles and services fueled by digitalization and vehicle automation. These new usages compete with established functions of streets such as providing space for mobility, social interactions, and cultural and recreational activities. The combination of these functions makes streets focal points of communities that do not only fulfill a functional role but also provide identity to cities. Streets are prominent parts of cities and are essential to sustainable transport plans. The main aim of the Street Networks and Sustainable Transportation collection is to focus on urban street networks and their effects on sustainable transportation. Accordingly, various street elements related to mobility, public transport, parking, design, and movement of people and goods at the street level can be included

What kind of information do drivers need? An investigation of drivers' information requirements in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Past research indicated that driver information requirements were varied (e. g. Spyridakis et al., 1991) and the motorists population cannot be consider homogeneous in terms of information requirements (e. g. Haselkorn et al., 1991). Some of the previous studies even suggestedth at before the so-called intelligent systemsg o into production, several unresolved issues concerning what kind of information drivers require need to be resolved. Thus, this thesis is interested in exploring several human factors issues concerning drivers; ' information requirements. First, the study is trying to provide at least a general picture of what kind of information is suitable to be presented to drivers in certain types of journey. Secondly, the thesis is interested in exploring the suitable timing and mode to present the required information to the target audiences. Besides the aforementioned human factors issues, this research also investigated how drivers plan their routes and find their way in unfamiliar destinations. The study is also interested in examining criteria used by drivers in choosing a route to their intended destination. Finally, this thesis aims to measure respondents' behavioral responses when they were given several traffic messages on congestion while commuting to and from work. The results also revealed that local drivers used more than one strategy for route planning and wayfinding in unfamiliar locations. Maps were the main strategy used by most of the respondents who participated in this study. Other strategies used by respondents were asking a passer-by, relying on memory and going without preparation. Apart from that, this study also demonstrated the difficulty in arriving at a general conclusion concerning the appropriate criteria that drivers would use in selecting a route for different trips. Local drivers would use a variety types of criteria in order to choose a route to a particular destination. However, the thesis identifies that drivers mainly employed three types of criteria in selecting a route to a particular destination. These criteria were safety, saving mileage and avoiding congested routes The final study (Study 3) was interested in extending the results of both studies I and 2 particularly the presentationo f congestionm essagesto its end users,i . e. motorists. An experiment was conducted to investigate drivers' response towards the presentation of traffic messagesa bout congestion.T he findings clearly supportedp revious work that found different types of information are likely to elicit different kind of responses from the drivers. In addition, local drivers also had ideas about the design of future traffic messages on congestion. For example, the need to have a quick solution when faced with the problem, e. g. offer alternate route; the need to have information on travel time if they decided to use the alternate route recommended by the systems; and some of the messages should be given as early as possible to serve as pre-trip advanced warning to drivers. The findings clearly demonstrated the preference for having more information rather than less

Trajectory data mining: A review of methods and applications

The increasing use of location-aware devices has led to an increasing availability of trajectory data. As a result, researchers devoted their efforts to developing analysis methods including different data mining methods for trajectories. However, the research in this direction has so far produced mostly isolated studies and we still lack an integrated view of problems in applications of trajectory mining that were solved, the methods used to solve them, and applications using the obtained solutions. In this paper, we first discuss generic methods of trajectory mining and the relationships between them. Then, we discuss and classify application problems that were solved using trajectory data and relate them to the generic mining methods that were used and real world applications based on them. We classify trajectory-mining application problems under major problem groups based on how they are related. This classification of problems can guide researchers in identifying new application problems. The relationships between the methods together with the association between the application problems and mining methods can help researchers in identifying gaps between methods and inspire them to develop new methods. This paper can also guide analysts in choosing a suitable method for a specific problem. The main contribution of this paper is to provide an integrated view relating applications of mining trajectory data and the methods used

Mobility choices - an instrument for precise automatized travel behavior detection & analysis

Within the Mobility Choices (MC) project we have developed an app that allows users to record their travel behavior and encourages them to try out new means of transportation that may better fit their preferences. Tracks explicitly released by the users are anonymized and can be analyzed by authorized institutions. For recorded tracks, the freely available app automatically determines the segments with their transportation mode; analyzes the track according to the criteria environment, health, costs, and time; and indicates alternative connections that better fit the criteria, which can individually be configured by the user. In the second step, the users can edit their tracks and release them for further analysis by authorized institutions. The system is complemented by a Web-based analysis program that helps authorized institutions carry out specific evaluations of traffic flows based on the released tracks of the app users. The automatic transportation mode detection of the system reaches an accuracy of 97%. This requires only minimal corrections by the user, which can easily be done directly in the app before releasing a track. All this enables significantly more accurate surveys of transport behavior than the usual time-consuming manual (non-automated) approaches, based on questionnaires

Characterisation of Intercity Bus Travel Demand in Quebec

RÉSUMÉ Les autocars interurbains jouent un rôle essentiel pour les déplacements interurbains dans le domaine du transport public. En effet, les autocars offrent plusieurs avantages. Tout d’abord, ils sont potentiellement flexibles au niveau de l’établissement des horaires de service. Ensuite, ils peuvent être opérés à l’aide d’une infrastructure nécessitant des investissements relativement modestes comparativement aux modes par rail et aériens, tout en tenant compte de la grande couverture spatiale offerte. Le transport par autocars au Québec est opéré par des entreprises privées qui doivent évidemment rentabiliser leurs opérations. Le service de transport par autocars est apparu dans les années 1920 comme un complément au service ferroviaire.----------ABSTRACT Intercity bus services play a key role in Canadian intercity public transportation due to their potential flexibility in scheduling, large spatial coverage, and relatively low infrastructure investment compared to rail and air transportations. The intercity bus industry in Quebec is made up of private companies whose business models endeavor to maximize their profits. This industry, however, is in decline with an obvious and continuous demand reduction since the 1980s due to the rural exodus, competition from other modes, and strict economic regimes. To better cope with the competition arising from other modes, such as train, low-cost flights, and emerging services like carpooling, the operators are committed to service improvement

e-Sanctuary: open multi-physics framework for modelling wildfire urban evacuation

The number of evacuees worldwide during wildfire keep rising, year after year. Fire evacuations at the wildland-urban interfaces (WUI) pose a serious challenge to fire and emergency services and are a global issue affecting thousands of communities around the world. But to date, there is a lack of comprehensive tools able to inform, train or aid the evacuation response and the decision making in case of wildfire. The present work describes a novel framework for modelling wildfire urban evacuations. The framework is based on multi-physics simulations that can quantify the evacuation performance. The work argues that an integrated approached requires considering and integrating all three important components of WUI evacuation, namely: fire spread, pedestrian movement, and traffic movement. The report includes a systematic review of each model component, and the key features needed for the integration into a comprehensive toolkit