Syrian Refugees and the Digital Passage to Europe: Smartphone Infrastructures and Affordances

This research examines the role of smartphones in refugees’ journeys. It traces the risks and possibilities afforded by smartphones for facilitating information, communication, and migration flows in the digital passage to Europe. For the Syrian and Iraqi refugee respondents in this France-based qualitative study, smartphones are lifelines, as important as water and food. They afford the planning, navigation, and documentation of journeys, enabling regular contact with family, friends, smugglers, and those who help them. However, refugees are simultaneously exposed to new forms of exploitation and surveillance with smartphones as migrations are financialised by smugglers and criminalized by European policies, and the digital passage is dependent on a contingent range of sociotechnical and material assemblages. Through an infrastructural lens, we capture the dialectical dynamics of opportunity and vulnerability, and the forms of resilience and solidarity, that arise as forced migration and digital connectivity coincide

Understanding media exposure among the ethnic Malay in Malaysia for the purpose of communicating road safety messages

In the last ten years about 7,000 people, mostly from the ethnic Malay, are killed on Malaysian roads annually.The road safety campaigns are carried out to create awareness among Malaysians, but communicating to the multi-lingual society is no mean feat.This study attempts to determine the media exposure among the Malays, as they are the most vulnerable group of road users.Such understanding would allow messages to be delivered effectively. A nationwide survey to determine media exposure among the all ethnics was carried out. The study shows that ethnics in Malaysia, including the Malays, generally preferred media of their respective mother tongue

Adolescent road user behaviour : a survey of 11-16 year olds

This study was carried out to investigate the safety related behaviour of road users aged 11-16. A self-completion questionnaire was designed to measure the frequency with which children from the target population carry out 43 different road using behaviours and a number of other variables including children's beliefs about the safety of their own road using behaviour. Two thousand four hundred and thirty three children from eleven secondary schools within England completed the questionnaire in lesson time at school. Factor analysis showed that scores on the 43 behaviour items were best represented by a three-factor solution. The three factors were named unsafe road crossing behaviour, dangerous playing in the road, and planned protective behaviour. Analysis of variance and stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that demographic variables and exposure variables had statistically significant effects on how often these behaviours were carried out. More interesting was the finding that respondents had realistic perceptions of their own behaviour as road users. The more respondents believed their road using behaviour to be unsafe and irresponsible, the more often they reported carrying out road using behaviour that was undesirable from a road safety point of view. These results and their implications for road safety interventions and further research are discussed

TRAVEL ADJUSTMENTS AFTER ROAD CLOSURE: WORKINGTON

The closure of all roads links between south and north Workington following the floods of November 2009 produced an unusual travel situation. Provision of a frequent and free train service and the erection of a footbridge brought good access between both parts of the town by foot, cycle and train, but a heavily congested 18 mile detour by road. This paper describes the findings of a survey of over 400 Workington residents about how they adapted and how that has affected the way they travel now that road connections have been restored. Adaptations included changing mode, time of travel and changing destinations. Many respondents report personal hardships, including loss of job, health impacts, reduced family visits to relations and the stress caused by extra travelling time. The paper also describes adaptations by organisations and authorities such as providing feeder bus services, opening a temporary supermarket and offering different worksites or changed hours to help their employees. The paper considers how the severing of connections required services to be rethought. The discussion questions whether the findings are relevant to more predictable changes such as rising fuel prices and climate change mitigation measures

Governing autonomous vehicles: emerging responses for safety, liability, privacy, cybersecurity, and industry risks

The benefits of autonomous vehicles (AVs) are widely acknowledged, but there are concerns about the extent of these benefits and AV risks and unintended consequences. In this article, we first examine AVs and different categories of the technological risks associated with them. We then explore strategies that can be adopted to address these risks, and explore emerging responses by governments for addressing AV risks. Our analyses reveal that, thus far, governments have in most instances avoided stringent measures in order to promote AV developments and the majority of responses are non-binding and focus on creating councils or working groups to better explore AV implications. The US has been active in introducing legislations to address issues related to privacy and cybersecurity. The UK and Germany, in particular, have enacted laws to address liability issues, other countries mostly acknowledge these issues, but have yet to implement specific strategies. To address privacy and cybersecurity risks strategies ranging from introduction or amendment of non-AV specific legislation to creating working groups have been adopted. Much less attention has been paid to issues such as environmental and employment risks, although a few governments have begun programmes to retrain workers who might be negatively affected.Comment: Transport Reviews, 201

Transportation, Terrorism and Crime: Deterrence, Disruption and Resilience

Abstract: Terrorists likely have adopted vehicle ramming as a tactic because it can be carried out by an individual (or “lone wolf terrorist”), and because the skills required are minimal (e.g. the ability to drive a car and determine locations for creating maximum carnage). Studies of terrorist activities against transportation assets have been conducted to help law enforcement agencies prepare their communities, create mitigation measures, conduct effective surveillance and respond quickly to attacks. This study reviews current research on terrorist tactics against transportation assets, with an emphasis on vehicle ramming attacks. It evaluates some of the current attack strategies, and the possible mitigation or response tactics that may be effective in deterring attacks or saving lives in the event of an attack. It includes case studies that can be used as educational tools for understanding terrorist methodologies, as well as ordinary emergencies that might become a terrorist’s blueprint

E-business impacts for urban freight: results from an Australian study

E-Business is expected to dramatically change the way business is conducted internationally, nationally, within states and at the local area level. Moreover, these changes are very likely to happen well within the planning time frames required for provision of transport infrastructure and services. E-business is defined as including e-commerce, either between Businesses to Business (B2B) or Business to Customers (B2C), and the adoption of electronic technology within businesses. This paper presents some results from a study commissioned by the Australian National Transport Secretariat (NTS) to assist Australian business and government pro-actively address the transport issues arising from e-business. The resulting working papers will be used to establish a research framework for identifying policy and planning levers to maximize benefits to Australia from national and global e-business activity. The study sought to investigate three principal questions on e-business impacts: how will the transport task change; what will be affected; and how can the transport system respond? Current literature suggests that growth in e-business stems from the combined existence of market demand, suitable enabling technology, and skills and familiarity in management/users/ industry/government. The results of the study suggest that e-business will have implications for urban freight including higher levels of demand for goods and services, increased requirements for logistics distribution, changes in location preferences and improved transport network performance

Online risk, harm and vulnerability: reflections on the evidence base for child Internet safety policy

After a decade or more in which research has examined the opportunities and risks encountered by children on the internet, this article assesses the contribution and challenges of producing an evidence base to inform policy in a hotly contested field. It offers critical analysis and new findings, drawing on the EU Kids Online project, a major study of children’s internet use in 25 countries. Building on the distinction between risk (a calculation based on the probability and severity of harm), and harm itself, research and policy on children’s online risk faces particular problems in measuring harm and, therefore, risk. Further complications arise from the interdependencies among opportunity, risk-taking, resilience and vulnerability. Such complexities must be recognised if we are to advance beyond the entrenched positions that so often polarise debate