Reliability Testing of the PABS (Pedestrian and Bicycling Survey) Method

The Pedestrian and Bicycling Survey (PABS) is a questionnaire designed to be economical and straightforward to administer so that it can be used by local governments interested in measuring the amount and purposes of walking and cycling in their communities. In addition, it captures key sociodemographic characteristics of those participating in these activities. Methods: In 2009 and 2010 results from the 4-page mail-out/mail-back PABS were tested for reliability across 2 administrations (test-retest reliability). Two versions--early and refined--were tested separately with 2 independent groups of university students from 4 universities (N = 100 in group 1; N = 87 in group 2). Administrations were 7 to 9 days apart. Results: Almost all survey questions achieved adequate to excellent reliability. Conclusions: Transportation surveys have not typically been tested for reliability making the PABS questionnaire an important new option for improving information collection about travel behavior, particularly walking and cycling

Re-think It Conference Proceedings

Essays contributed by participants in Re-think it: Libraries for a New Age, a conference on library design, services, values, and visions, which was held in the Mary Idema Pew Library Learning and Information Commons at Grand Valley State University, August 10 - 12, 2015.https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/rethinkit_proceedings/1000/thumbnail.jp

The POSTGRES Rule Manager

This paper explains the rule subsystem that is being implemented in the POSTGRES DBMS. It is novel in sev eral ways. First, it gives to users the capability of defining rules as well as data to a DBMS. Moreover, depending on the scope of each rule defined, optimization is handled differently. This leads to good performance both in the case that there are many rules each of small scope and a few rules each of large scope. In addition, rules provide either a forward chaining control flow or a backward chaining one, and the system will choose the control mechanism that optimizes performance in the cases where it is possible. Furthermore, priority rules can be defined, thereby allowing a user to specify rule systems that have conflicts. This use of exceptions seems necessary in many applications. Lastly, our rule system can provide database services such as views, protection, integrity constraints, and referential integrity simply by applying the rules system in particular ways. Consequently, no special purpose code need be included in POSTGRES to handle these tasks. 1

Bicycling and Transit. A Marriage Unrealized

When effectively integrated with transit services, bicycling may achieve various environmental, health, and congestion-mitigation benefits for communities. A successful marriage between the two will most likely result in increasing (a) the catchment area and subsequent patronage of transit, (b) the efficiency of transit, and (c) the overall demand for cycling. A core problem, however, exists in that the predominant approach for integrating bicycling and transit vehicles frequently runs against capacity restraints. Effectively integrating bicycling and transit requires analysis of a broad range of alternatives that consider the travel patterns and needs of individuals and accompanying urban form characteristics. To fill a void in the literature concerning integrating bicycling and transit, this paper surveys existing knowledge about the two modes, describes three innovative initiatives that show promise in addressing capacity limitations, and sketches an analysis framework for communities and transit agencies to maximize the integration of bicycling and transit. A preliminary index is developed to predict cycling transit user (CTU) generation at transit stops. Factors identified in the literature as important in determining the share of CTUs (i.e., transit mode, location in the urban fabric, access and egress distance, and trip purpose) are nonuniform among communities, indicating that solutions must be tailored to fit local circumstances. Although the literature has traditionally focused on bicycles aboard transit, real gains will most likely be realized through initiatives such as bicycle stations and bicycles at egress locations for use with egress trips. Analysis relying on robust cost-effectiveness could help transit agencies with increased integration of bicycling and transit

Assessing Options to Enhance Bicycle and Transit Integration

Cycling continues to increase in popularity and garner attention for the ability to achieve environmental, health, and congestion-mitigation benefits for communities. Although the growth in both cycling and transit may be in small part attributed to bicycle and transit integration, the growth is difficult to measure. Which of the variety of available strategies for bicycle and transit integration—such as increased bicycle parking at stops, increased bicycle capacity on transit vehicles, and shared bicycle infrastructure—is more cost-effective? Which strategies will yield the highest number of cycle transit users? To fill a void in the literature about integrating bicycling and transit, four common bicycle and transit integration strategies were described and assessed. A framework was developed for evaluating strategies, and a preliminary cost-effectiveness assessment was conducted. Cost-effectiveness comprises costs and cyclists\u27 preferences for each strategy. Preferences were gathered through stated-preference surveys from focus groups in five case study communities and calculated according to the analytic hierarchy process, a multicriterion decision-making tool. Transit with a bicycle aboard was most preferred by cyclists, whereas results of the cost-effectiveness measure suggest that enhancing bicycle parking at a transit stop proved most cost-effective when compared with the most common bicycle onboard transit configuration: front-mounted bicycle racks on buses. The limited growth potential for bicycles aboard transit requires consideration of alternatives. The overall importance that cyclists assigned to security suggested considerable room for creative solutions to improve the favorability of the other strategies while addressing some inherent capacity limitations of the most popular strategy: transporting the bicycle with the rider on transit

Bicycling access and egress to transit: Informing the possibilities

When effectively integrated with transit services, considerable room exists for bicycling to realize various benefits to communities. A successful marriage between bicycling and transit will likely increase the use and efficiency of both modes. A core problem, however, exists in that the predominant approach for integrating bicycles and transit—bicycles aboard transit vehicles—frequently runs up against capacity restraints. Integrating bicycling and transit requires analysis of a broad range of alternatives that considers both the travel patterns and needs of individuals but also accompanying urban form characteristics. What are the most cost effective strategies likely to generate the largest number of cyclists accessing transit?To aid in developing a framework to evaluate the cost effectiveness of different strategies to integrate transit and bicycling this project: (1) reviews the state of the knowledge, (2) proposes an analysis framework for communities and transit agencies to consider in efforts to maximize the integration of bicycling and transit, (3) conducts focus groups with cyclists from five case study communities to gauge preferences for bicycle and transit integration strategies, and (4) develops a preliminary application to evaluate four bicycle and transit integration strategies based on focus group discussions and use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). These evaluation measures are applied to five communities.A CTU index provides an initial attempt to understand transit stops that have a higher likelihood to attract CTUs. The Analytic Hierarchy Process ranked cyclists’ preferences for four bicycle and transit integration strategies in order of preference: (1) “Bike ON transit” (transporting the owner’s bicycle aboard( inside or outside) the transit vehicle) (0.471), (2) “Bike TO transit” (using and parking the owner’s bicycle at a transit access location) (0.185), (3) “Shared bike” (sharing a bicycle, which would be based at either the transit access or egress point) (0.185), and (4) “Two bike” (using an owner’s two bicycles at the access and egress location) (0.159). Results of the cost effectiveness assessment suggest that “Bike ON transit” ranked most cost effective overall, followed by “Bike to transit,” “Two bike,” and “Shared bike” strategies

Extending a Data Base System with Procedures

This paper suggests that more powerful data base systems (DBMS) can be built by supporting data base procedures as full fledged data base objects. In particular, allowing fields of a data base to be a collection of queries in the query language of the system is shown to allow complex data relationships to be naturally expressed. Moreover, many of the features present in objectoriented systems and semantic data models can be supported by this facility. In order to implement this construct, extensions to a typical relational query language must be made and considerable work on the execution engine of the underlying DBMS must be accomplished. This paper reports on the extensions for one particular query language and data manager and then gives performance figures for a prototype implementation. Even though the performance of the prototype is competitive with that of a conventional system, suggestions for improvement are presented. 1

Reliability Testing of the Pedestrian and Bicycling Survey (PABS) Method

Background: The Pedestrian and Bicycling Survey (PABS) is a questionnaire designed to be economical and straightforward to administer so that it can be used by local governments interested in measuring the amount and purposes of walking and cycling in their communities. In addition, it captures key sociodemographic characteristics of those participating in these activities. Methods: In 2009 and 2010 results from the 4-page mail-out/mail-back PABS were tested for reliability across 2 administrations (test-retest reliability). Two versions—early and refined—were tested separately with 2 independent groups of university students from 4 universities (N = 100 in group 1; N = 87 in group 2). Administrations were 7 to 9 days apart. Results: Almost all survey questions achieved adequate to excellent reliability. Conclusions: Transportation surveys have not typically been tested for reliability making the PABS questionnaire an important new option for improving information collection about travel behavior, particularly walking and cycling