About the "away goals rule" in association football:Does scrapping the rule increase the fairness of the game?

The present study analyzes all major international football tournaments organized by UEFA and CONMEBOL during a period of 30 years to assess the impact of the away goals rule (AGR). The study takes advantage of natural experiment given by the differentiated application of the AGR by both confederations, in order to assess the efficacy and the consequences of the rule in terms of both the total amount of goals being scored (the original intention of the rule) and the teams that progressed onto the next stages. The results show that the AGR seems to have failed to fulfill its original goal of increasing both scoring by teams playing away and scoring in general. The AGR is found to have a significant impact favoring the chances of the team starting the series at home. However, it still does not translate into a higher probability of progressing onto the next stage than the team closing the series at home. Closing the series at home has an intrinsic advantage, which is only countered, although not completely, by the impact of the AGR. Regarding tiebreakers, we observe that closing the series at home has a positive impact no matter whether overtimes with AGR or penalty shootouts are used as tiebreakers. However, playing an overtime, when no AGR is set in place has a determining influence favoring the team closing the series at home

Commuting to the future: Assessing the relationship between individuals’ usage of information and communications technology, personal attitudes, characteristics and mode choice

Innovations in transportation and communications technologies influence the development of cities and how people move through them. Since the widespread adoption of smartphones, mobility and information and communication technology (ICT) have become increasingly interconnected, and there may be a possibility for mobile technologies to nudge, or influence, individuals to travel using sustainable, and collective modes. It remains unclear whether social, financial, or ICT incentives would be effective to nudge the use of sustainable modes. The objective of the study is to understand the reasons affecting modal choices and how the use of ICTs and personal opinions and attitudes influence the decision-making process. A discrete choice model is used to consider five transportation alternatives including three single modes, namely bicycle, transit, and car, and two multimodal possibilities, bicycle and transit as well as park and ride (car and transit). The target population for this study are Utrecht University employees, who travel to a large university campus located in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The results of the person-based mode-choice model demonstrate that strong correlations exist between the kinds of mobile applications individuals use, their attitudes towards travel, their personal characteristics and their transportation mode. No mobile application seems to favor the use of active modes, which cast doubts upon the use of ICT to promote sustainable transportation. However, social incentives may play an important role for certain groups as individuals who are influenced by their friends, family, and colleagues, are less likely to travel by car or to use park & ride facilities

From riding to driving:The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on public transit in Metro Vancouver

This study analyzed a panel-based dataset to understand the effect of COVID-19 on transport behavior in Metro Vancouver, Canada, between December 2020 and May 2021. Findings from the sample indicate a decline in transit users compared to pre-pandemic levels and an increase in car use. On the other hand, we saw a shift to a more positive perception of transit in May 2021, while also capturing an increase in perceived levels of crowding. The study underscores the necessity for transit agencies to focus on instilling the feeling of safety among the population, as the majority of those who have not used transit since the beginning of the pandemic reported their willingness to return only with widespread vaccination, community immunity, or other broad successful treatments

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the comfort of riding a crowded bus in Metro Vancouver, Canada

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on transit ridership around the world, including in Metro Vancouver, Canada. The regional transit agency there, TransLink, faced the challenge of not only tackling the sudden revenue loss but also ensuring the safety and comfort of its riders that could be affected by crowding. As the tide of restrictions subsided, and riders are gradually coming back to public transport, their feelings of safety and comfort must be ensured so that they do not deflect to other modes. To guide TransLink and agencies alike in this process, this study aimed to understand the factors that affected the decision to board a bus and level of comfort of riding it for different behavioral classes of transit riders before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It employed a classification of transit riders based on their attitudes towards personal safety and flexibility both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and investigated the effect of crowding on their decision to board and the comfort of boarding a bus at various crowding levels. The findings of this study are expected to guide the development of relevant policy interventions that can engage diverse groups of riders to continue using transit in a way that is convenient, comfortable, and safe for them

How do I want the city council to spend our budget? Conceiving MaaS from a citizen's perspective … (as well as biking infrastructure and public transport)

While several governmental and research efforts are set upon mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), most of them are driven by individual travel behavior and potential usage. However, considering only individuals’ preferences carries the risk of neglecting societal benefits going beyond individual travel behavior. This study addresses the valuation of different features of MaaS-services from a social desirability perspective as compared to social investments in biking infrastructure and in public transport, and aims at eliciting trade-offs between different features of such projects. This analysis is conducted on the basis of Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE). In PVE-experiments, individuals select their preferred portfolio of government projects given a constrained public budget and societal preferences for (the impacts of) government projects can be determined based on these choices. The results show that the population of Rotterdam exhibits a willingness to allocate public resources to all types of investment projects considered in the analysis. However, the willingness to allocate resources to bike infrastructure projects and public transport seems to be higher than the willingness to dedicate resources to MaaS subsidies. Within the different types of MaaS subsidies considered, subsidies aimed at sustainability exhibit a larger social valuation. Strong negative synergies among similar projects exist, signalizing that individuals prefer diversifying the use of public resources across different types of investment projects

Should competition between regulated public transport and autonomous ride-sharing providers be allowed?:An outlook into a possible transport paradox

Provision of public transport with autonomous vehicles may enable the implementation of more flexible services, characterised by a reduction of the vehicle's capacity (and increase in the number of vehicles) - leading to fewer stops, better frequencies, and more individualised services (origins and destinations). If public transport provision is centralised, increasing flexibility will lead to reductions in average travel times (although not to the optimal capacity), as the provider internalises congestion costs; however, if public transport is provided in competitive conditions, it may lead to situations in which the entire society ends up worse off, representing a clear transportation paradox

Should competition between regulated public transport and autonomous ride-sharing providers be allowed?: An outlook into a possible transport paradox

Provision of public transport with autonomous vehicles may enable the implementation of more flexible services, characterised by a reduction of the vehicle's capacity (and increase in the number of vehicles) - leading to fewer stops, better frequencies, and more individualised services (origins and destinations). If public transport provision is centralised, increasing flexibility will lead to reductions in average travel times (although not to the optimal capacity), as the provider internalises congestion costs; however, if public transport is provided in competitive conditions, it may lead to situations in which the entire society ends up worse off, representing a clear transportation paradox