The impact of accessibility by public transport on real estate values: A comparison between the cities of Rome and Santander

Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that greater accessibility to opportunities can have a positive impact on real estate values. However, this capitalisation of the benefits of accessibility could vary between different study areas. This research estimates hedonic and spatial hedonic models in two urban areas to compare if differences can be found in the impact accessibility using public transport has on residential property values. The two study areas chosen for comparison are a medium sized city without any major mobility problems (Santander, Spain) and a very large city with major congestion problems (Rome, Italy). The estimated hedonic models have considered the possible presence of spatial effects, a common occurrence with real estate data which may generate dependency in the residuals of hedonic models. Accessibility has been measured using two types of indicators: relative and gravity based. The results confirm that accessibility was a positive factor on property prices in both cities, although in Santander this was only true using the relative indicator to the city centre. These results are relevant for supporting the introduction of value capture policies which provide finance for new projects to extend and encourage greater use of public transport.This research was made possible through the projects PARK-INFO (TRA2013-48116-R) and REALTIMEQUALITY (TRA2015-69903-R) financed by the Government of Spain

Urban freight transport demand: transferability of survey results analysis and models

ABSTRACT: The present research addresses the issue of data collection, models and methods for urban freight transport demand investigation and the difficulties related to costs and the fact that few data are often available. Then, it becomes important to investigate the transferability of results in order to improve their use and to assess whether the obtained results is dependent on any particular condition, and whether the lessons learnt in one city can be transferred to other cities. The transfer of a previously estimated model to a new application context can reduce or eliminate the need for a large data collection and model development effort in the application context. Therefore, the main goal of the research is to compare the freight transport demand in two European cities (Rome and Santander) in order to highlight which similarities and differences depend on some factors and demonstrates that there are many different patterns of urban distribution that need to be taken into account. The analysis is based on some similar surveys carried out in the cities that are also very different in terms of spatial and economic patterns. Furthermore, the available surveys in Rome and Santander have been the basis for the calibration also in Santander of a modelling system for urban freight demand forecast set up in Rome. In such a way, the analysis of model and parameter transferability is also investigated

Design and Evaluation of a Mathematical Optimization Model for Traffic Signal Plan Transition Based on Social Cost Function

Signal plan transition is the process of changing from one timing plan to another. It begins when the first intersection starts adjusting signal timing plans and ends when the last intersection completes adjusting signal timing plans.The transition between signal timing plans is required because traffic patterns change during the day. Therefore, it is necessary to modify signal timing parameters offset, phase split, and cycle length for different expectations of traffic volume. This paper presents an alternative and new mathematical model to enhance the performance of traffic signals coordination at intersections during the transition phase. This model is oriented to describe the transition regarding coordination parameters in all intersections of an arterial road for minimizing the social cost during the transition phase expressed in function of costs due to delays, fuel consumption, and air emissions. An ant colony algorithm was designed, coded, and simulated to find the optimal transition parameters using available data.The model was evaluated based on its ability to minimize social costs during the transition period. Results showed that the proposed method performs better than traditional ones

Trip distribution model for regional railway services considering spatial effects between stations

The railways are a priority transport mode for the European Union given their safety record and environmental sustainability. Therefore it is important to have quantitative models available which allow passenger demand for rail travel to be simulated for planning purposes and to evaluate different policies. The aim of this article is to specify and estimate trip distribution models between railway stations by considering the most influential demand variables. Two types of models were estimated: Poisson regression and gravity. The input data were the ticket sales and the prices between stations on a regional line in Cantabria (Spain) which were provided by the Spanish railway infrastructure administrator (ADIF – RAM). The models have also considered the possible existence of spatial effects between train stations. The results show that the models have a good fit to the available data, especially the gravity models constrained by origins and destinations. Furthermore, the gravity models which considered the existence of spatial effects between stations had a significantly better fit and provided a more realistic journey pattern in a future scenario than the Poisson models and the gravity models that did not consider these effects. The proposed models have therefore been shown to be good support tools for decision making in the field of railway planning.This research was made possible thanks to financing from the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking 2015 call through the "NEAR2050: future challenges for the rail sector" project (Grant Number: 730838). The authors would also like to thank ADIF – RAM for having provided the data used

The impact of undesirable externalities on residential property values: spatial regressive models and an empirical study

Pollutant emissions, noise and other externalities generated by heavy infrastructures, might impact negatively on real estate values. To test this effect, this paper presents the results of an analysis based on Hedonic Linear Regression, Spatial Hedonic Linear Regression and Hedonic Geographically Weighted Regression models, carried out for the study case of the province of Taranto (Italy). The biggest steel factory in Europe is located here, and some population movements have been observed in relation to the high levels of pollution in the areas close to the factory. The variables used to measure the impact of externalities are of two types: objective indicators such as the distance from the industrial area and the levels of NO2 and PM10, and subjective indicators such as the level of pollution and noise perceived by the population. Results show that the distance from factory was a positive factor in the real estate prices although not always clearly significant, and among pollution indicators, only high levels of NO2 had a negative effect. The accessibility to employment did not prove to be a significant variable in the real estate prices, which indicates that factors related to environmental quality have a greater weight in residential location. Moreover, models including subjective indicators do not show better estimates than models considering only objective indicators. Finally, spatial regression models were useful to analyse the spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity observed in the data.This study was supported by research funding form the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the projects TRA2012-37659 (co-financed with FEDER funds) and TRA2013-48116-R

Capturing the conditions that introduce systematic variation in bike-sharing travel behavior using data mining techniques

The potential of smart-card transactions within bike-sharing systems (BSS) is still to be explored. This research proposes an original offline data mining procedure that takes advantage of the quality of these data to analyze the bike usage casuistry within a sharing scheme. A difference is made between usage and travel behavior: the usage is described by the actual trip-chaining gathered with every smart-card transaction and is directly influenced by the limitations of the BSS as a public renting service, whilst the travel behavior relates to the spatio-temporal distribution, the travel time and trip purpose. The proposed approach is based on the hypothesis that there are systematic usage types which can be described through a set of conditions that permit to classify the rentals and reduce the heterogeneity in travel patterns. Hence, the proposed algorithm is a powerful tool to characterize the actual demand for bike-sharing systems. Furthermore, the results show that its potential goes well beyond that since service deficiencies rapidly arise and their impacts can be measured in terms of demand. Consequently, this research contributes to the state of knowledge on cycling behavior within public systems and it is also a key instrument beneficial to both decision makers and operators assisting the demand analysis, the service redesign and its optimization

Two Models of Trips Distribution: Entropy Model versus Triproportional Model. Application in the city THE City de Conception (Chile)

RESUMEN. En este artículo se revisan y se comparan dos modelos de distribución de viajes, analizando los puntos fuertes y débiles de cada uno de ellos, fundamentando dicho análisis en una aplicación practica con datos reales de la ciudad chilena de Concepción. Los dos modelos a analizar son: un Modelo de Maximización de Entropía, utilizando el método de Hyman en el cual los balanceos entre filas y columnas son proporcionados por la metodología de Furness, y un Modelo Triproporcional. Para un adecuado análisis, estos modelos se han programado, resultando una aplicación informática que permite evaluar ambos modelos con distintos valores en sus parámetros y obtener diferentes matrices de Distribución de Viajes. A partir de los datos provenientes de una Encuesta Origen Destino (EOD) en la Ciudad de Concepción y de la información sobre los niveles de servicio promedio interzonales para cada modo de transporte se presentan conclusiones. ABSTRACT. In this paper, two models of distribution of trips are revised and compared, analyzing the strong and weak points of each one of them, basing this analysis in an application practices with real data of City of Concepción (Chile). The two models to analyze are: a Model of Maximization of Entropy, using the method of Hyman in which the swingings between lines and columns are provided by the methodology of Furness, and a Model Triproportional. For an appropriate analysis, these models have been programmed, generating a software application that allows to evaluate both models with different values in their parameters and to obtain different matrix of Distribution of Trips. Starting from the data coming from a Survey Origin Destination (EOD) in City of Concepción and with the information on the levels of service average for each mode of transport, conclusions they are presented

The Transportation Engineering Inside the City Structure in the Science Fiction Graphic Novel of the 20th Century

ABSTRACT:Abstract Comic books, graphic novels, bandes dessinées in France, Fumetti in Italy, Tebeos in Spain, etc, are only some of the names given to the ninth art in the world since their first representations in the Ancient Egypt times. In these last decades it has transformed itself, from just a children entertainment of little intellectual value, and now it belongs to the best family of universal literature. Just as the other arts, painting, music, poetry, cinema…, it has become another way of expression of the human being, who often reflects on his master pieces the compendium of the feelings and thoughts of a whole generation, an epoch, or even sublime states of the soul, capable to transmit, in just one masterpiece, the essence of our nature to the next generations. These artists, the comic’s ones, the same as in literature or cinema, have also tried to represent, not only the past and the present, but also the future of the human being. Doing sometimes prodigious imagination efforts, they have constructed utopic, distopic, extra-terrestrial…scenarios, designing realistic or impossible science fiction backgrounds, which will finally influence all of us, as intellectual beings that we are, in all our disciplines, just as the other arts do. And one of these disciplines is, of course, the science of transportation, in all its aspects. Willing to approach all these questions, we began a long investigation journey which will end in a doctoral thesis with the title: “The Civil Engineering in the Science Fiction Graphic Novel”. In this article we anticipate and summarize a small sample of our thesis, including some of the most important aspects of the mentioned investigation as well as the obtained conclusions