Improving GIS-based Models for Bicycling Speed Estimations

For reasons ranging from carbon emissions to public health, traffic planning as well as urban design aim to increase the modal share of bicycling on the cost of fossil fuel based commuting. However, most urban and traffic planning practices handle bicycling very schematically. Typically, tools for analyzing bicycling rely on fixed speed templates, paying little attention to the fact that bicycling speeds vary a lot depending on type of bicyclist and explicit properties of bicycle routes and the contexts of those routes. As long as very simplified assumptions form the basis for analysis, it is hard to make reliable comparisons of alternative proposals of urban form layouts and infrastructure investments. Therefore, from the perspective of traffic planning as well as from the perspective of urban planning and design, there is need for more refined methods for predicting bicycling speeds. This paper presents an outline for such a bicycling speed modelling tool.\ua0This work combines tools and measures from two recent bikeability modelling studies. One is an urban form based study of bicycle route networks, grasping issues related to geometrical directness of routes and various measures of accessibility and density. The other calculates likely speeds based on horizontal and vertical geometry of routes. The latter model uses an advanced statistical model to grasp dependence between adjacent road segments. The new combined model is estimated using GPS tracking of real bicycle trips in combination with GIS-based data of bicycle route networks and of the local contexts of the routes.\ua0More in detail, the new model includes parameters estimated for the following covariates:\ua0• route geometry (by slope and by horizontal curvature)• intersection impedances derived from type of junction (by presence of signal-crossings and by kinds of crossing streets categorized by amounts of traffic)• type of bicycle-route (bicycle lane in street, separate bicycle lane, combined walk- and bicycle lane or mixed-use streets)\ua0• kind of surface (smooth surface or gravel)• density of entrances along route (a proxy for slower bicycling due to urban/vibrant context)The modelling is based on so-called Markov-dependence, including that the covariates are used to estimate continuous speed profiles along entire routes, and not only average speed levels on road segments seen separate and independent. Through this, the new model results in more realistic speed estimations than the previous models. The paper presents the result from applying the tool on a sample of bicycle routes in Gothenburg and compares the results with analyses from previous models and with empirical data of bicycling along the same routes

Barn og rom. Refleksjoner over barns opplevelse av rom

SINTEF Byggforsk og Dronning Mauds Minne Høgskole hadde på oppdrag fra Trondheim kommune undersøkt to barnehager bygd etter baseprinsipp med fokus på hvordan fysiske omgivelser danner premisser for, og rammer rundt, barns utfoldelse i barnehagen. Resultat fra prosjektet skal gi innspill til utvikling av nybygg, samt gi innspill til endring i de eksisterende barnehagene. Problemstillingene for forskning er todelt. Sentrale spørsmål i forskningsprosjektet er følgende: - Barnehagens steder og rom i et dannelsesperspektiv - Barnehagens fysiske utforming og Trondheim kommunes målsettinger i funksjons- og arealprogram for barnehager.publishedVersio

Russiskspråklige i Estland: En minoritet uten agens

Abstract: Russian-speakers in Estonia: A Minority Without Agency This article explores the conditions of the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia and sees the development of these conditions as a product of an interaction between the nationalizing state, the Russian-speaking minority, the minority’s “kin state”, and the international community; a framework dubbed the “quadratic nexus” by David J. Smith, expanding upon the theories of Rogers Brubaker. This article provides an updated empirical analysis of the impact of the quadratic dynamic in Estonian minority relations, as the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has shifted the balance of power between the agents in Smith’s nexus. The result of this shift is that the conditions of the Russian-speaking minority are now almost entirely decided by the nationalizing state, influenced by Russian aggression. The Russian Federation has made the protection of minority rights in Estonia increasingly difficult by pressuring the Estonian political elite to take an even more conservative stance on nationality policies as a response to the perceived threat from their neighbor in the east, in addition to reinforcing international indifference to minority rights in Estonia. This, combined with the preexisting socio-economic conditions of the Russian-speaking minority has led to the near total loss of the minority’s agency

Distances, accessibilities and attractiveness; looking at new approaches to include measures of urban form in hedonic pricing modelling

The population of Oslo increases rapidly and the corresponding demand of housing is an issue of great public, political and professional interest. Today, we can see several interesting discrepancies in the housing market, such as very high prices for dwellings with low technical standards and dwellings located in neighbourhoods very different from those planned and built today. There is a great diversity in the housing households’ willingness to pay. What are the patterns of such attractiveness in more detail and what might be the lessons to learn concerning what to build in the future? How can we plan and build housing that responds to the wide range of contemporary demands and that will also be attractive in decennials to come? Economists and real estate businesses provide statistics on prices of dwellings, but the variables examined are usually too general for the results to be useful for actual planning and design. However, space syntax based research has shown that locations in cities can be measured more specifically and that analyses of these measurements correlate with numerous phenomenon related to activities and attractiveness of cities. By applying space syntax based measurements in GIS, comparing housing prices with presumed relevant variables of buildings and neighbourhoods by means of hedonic regression analysis, it is possible to seize new knowledge about how specific urban form variables of buildings and neighbourhoods correlate with housing prices. By this approach, willingness to pay for dwellings has been examined in two studies in Stockholm and Copenhagen. This paper presents methods and some result of these studies. In brief, we see that continuous urban form measurements in GIS are significant for willingness to pay for dwellings. The specificity of these measurements achieved by GIS analyses, applying the Place Syntax Tool, provides new and more detailed knowledge in this field

Assessing cities: Applying GIS-based methods for mapping cross-scale spatial indicators

In recent years, several systems and tools to assess energy consumption and carbon emissions at scales beyond that of merely buildings, such as LEED, CASBEE and BREEAM communities have been development. However, reviews reveal a lack of robustness in these methods both in terms of an unstructured mix of qualitative and quantitative criteria and lack of focus on urban form parameters found to influence energy consumption and carbon emissions. A promising quantitative assessment system including various urban form indicators is developed by the Urban Morphology Institute (UMI) in Paris. Within the research centre on zero emission neighbourhoods in smart cities (ZEN), a GIS-based method is applied to analyze conditions of urban form known to contribute to carbon emissions. In this paper we demonstrate how a selection of the UMI indicators describing proximity can be further specified applying GIS-based methods. The potential of applicability of urban assessment system in planning as well as design processes will increase when linked to tools that are already implemented, and map visualizations as well as data provided by these methods are highly applicable in planning and urban design. As further research, methods described in recent research within ZEN and specified measures for calculating UMI indicators, will be tested in analyses of urban development areas in Norway

Gridshells in Recent Research—A Systematic Mapping Study

Gridshells are shells where the structural system is some kind of grid of linear members rather than a surface. With today’s focus on environmentally friendly solutions, gridshells have gained increased relevance as inherently material-efficient structures. This paper investigates the recent research on gridshells, who performs it and what their contributions are, and will thus provide an overview of the research field of gridshells. This study is performed as a systematic mapping. The articles were categorised by research type, motivation, contribution, gridshell type, material, and scientific field. The study shows that most articles are within structural engineering, whereas contributions from architecture were hard to find. The typical study was theoretical studies performing analyses on a specific load or structural behaviour. Some possible knowledge gaps were also identified, including review articles on loads and behaviour, research on bending active metal gridshells and development of gridshell nodes

Gridshells in Recent Research—A Systematic Mapping Study

Gridshells are shells where the structural system is some kind of grid of linear members rather than a surface. With today’s focus on environmentally friendly solutions, gridshells have gained increased relevance as inherently material-efficient structures. This paper investigates the recent research on gridshells, who performs it and what their contributions are, and will thus provide an overview of the research field of gridshells. This study is performed as a systematic mapping. The articles were categorised by research type, motivation, contribution, gridshell type, material, and scientific field. The study shows that most articles are within structural engineering, whereas contributions from architecture were hard to find. The typical study was theoretical studies performing analyses on a specific load or structural behaviour. Some possible knowledge gaps were also identified, including review articles on loads and behaviour, research on bending active metal gridshells and development of gridshell nodes

Supplemental Material - The impact of street network connectivity on active school travel: Norway’s HUNT study

Supplemental Material for The impact of street network connectivity on active school travel: Norway’s HUNT study by Peter Schön, Eva Heinen, Vegar Rangul, Erik R. Sund, and Bendik Manum in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science</p

What Makes a Good Cargo Bike Route? Perspectives from Users and Planners

Cargo bikes—bicycles made to carry both goods and people—are becoming increasingly common as an alternative to automobiles in urban areas. With a wider and heavier body, cargo bikes often face problems even in the presence of cycling infrastructure, thus limiting their possibilities of route choice. Infrastructure quality and the route choices of cyclists have been well studied, but often solely based on a quantitative approach, leading to tools such as BLOS (bicycle level of service). With various designs of cargo bikes being used for a wide range of purposes, the route choice of cargo bike users is difficult to generalize. This study combines quantitative and qualitative approaches in order to explore what is important for cargo bike users’ route choice, and how this knowledge can be effectively used for planning. Our results suggest that while some general preferences exist, route choice involves complex dynamics that cannot be fully explained by quantitative measures alone: in addition to understanding “what” is important for cargo bike users, we need to understand “why” it is important. Furthermore, route choice is also influenced by the city context, making a study tailored to the local context essential