Starting from December 2019 the world has faced an unprecedented health crisis caused by the new Coronavirus (COVID-19) due to the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen. Within this topic, the aim of the paper was to ...quantify the effect of mobility habits in the spread of the Coronavirus in Italy through a multiple linear regression model. Estimation results showed that mobility habits represent one of the variables that explains the number of COVID-19 infections jointly with the number of tests/day and some environmental variables (i.e. PM pollution and temperature). Nevertheless, a proximity variable to the first outbreak was also significant, meaning that the areas close to the outbreak had a higher risk of contagion, especially in the initial stage of infection (time-decay phenomena). Furthermore, the number of daily new cases was related to the trips performed three weeks before. This threshold of 21 days could be considered as a sort of positivity detection time, meaning that the mobility restrictions quarantine commonly set at 14 days, defined only according to incubation-based epidemiological considerations, is underestimated (possible delays between contagion and detection) as a containment policy and may not always contribute to effectively slowing down the spread of virus worldwide. This result is original and, if confirmed in other studies, will lay the groundwork for more effective containment of COVID-19 in countries that are still in the health emergency, as well as for possible future returns of the virus.
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•We quantify the effect of mobility habits in the spread of the Coronavirus in Italy.•Daily COVID-19 cases are directly related to the mobility habits performed 21 days before.•Population density, PM pollutant and number of tests per day have a direct relationship with the infection.•Temperature has an inverse relationship with the spread of the virus.•The areas close to the outbreak had a higher risk of contagion (time-decay phenomena).
Purpose. Article present the survey on dependency of quality-of-life indicators with transport accessibility. Specific focus is on rural areas. There was hypothesis to prove, that inhabitants of low ...population density rural areas are facing poor quality-of-life. Design/Methodology/Approach. A representative survey of the population was chosen as the research method. The study area was divided into transport districts, and the representativeness of the survey was ensured in each transport district. Transport districts are divided according to the criterion of travel time and public transport supply. The survey included questions that allowed checking whether and which quality of life parameters correlate with the quality of public services. Findings and implications. The research found that public transport accessibility is closely related with such attributes as education, employment rate and closely related to such attributes of life quality as change of clothes more often or having the proper shoes more often as well as having Internet access. Limitations. The study was conducted in just one country with a very high level of car ownership, which is still growing. Another limitation is that the public transport supply in this country is insufficient due to historical reasons. For a long time, public transport was unsubsidized or weakly subsidized in this country. Originality. The originality of the paper is based on a representative survey conducted by the authors, the results of which linked quality of life indicators with public transport availability indicators. The originality of the work is based on a representative survey conducted by the authors, the results of which linked quality of life indicators with public transport availability indicators.
This paper proposes a holistic framework to identify public transport disadvantaged areas in terms of the level of services (LOS), area-based accessibility, and facility-based accessibility by ...employing the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) dataset. The framework considers the spatial and temporal levels of transit services, the spatial separation by urban functional areas, the availability of facilities based on the cumulative opportunity method, and the minimum time cost based on dual accessibility. A case study is performed in Hong Kong. The results show that the main problem for rural residents using public transport services lies in walking to transit stops/piers instead of long waits at public transport stops or infrequent services. The map of area-based accessibility shows great variations by urban functional areas. Despite being a highly transit-dependent city, we find huge disparities of accessibility to public facilities within Hong Kong and people living in some rural areas have difficulties in accessing basic services such as education, health care and shopping through public transport. Theoretically, this study reinforces the significance of place-based transport disadvantage and its intricate relationship with urban form. Empirically, it provides practical recommendations for public transport planning. The findings can direct transit agencies to re-plan and deploy services such as introducing demand-responsive transit services to better address the needs of people living in transport disadvantaged areas.
•A holistic framework to identify public transport disadvantaged areas•Public transport accessibility to a broad range of public facilities is considered•Walking to transit stops, not waiting for vehicles, is a rural transport problem•Rural areas struggle to access education, healthcare, & shopping through public transport•Rural areas need 90+ min for similar opportunities as urban areas within 30 min
Weekend rest is an important part of a person's recreational cycle. Northerners need a good rest to maintain their health. The choice of a place for vacation is associated with restrictions on the ...time of movement, since its period should not be longer than 2–3 days. The purpose of the research is to select the most suitable transport areas for residents of the Arkhangelsk urban agglomeration, taking into account the landscape and tourist resources. Based on the study of vehicles and the geographical location of tourist services, three sectors were identified, limited by five–hour transport accessibility from the cities of the Arkhangelsk agglomeration. The most promising for priority development is the southern sector, the centers of which can be the villages of Kholmogory and Emetsk. Excursion, relaxation, ecological and sports tourism can be offered there at any time of the year. The transit position of the main roads of the region gives this sector the advantages of attracting tourists from other regions. The western and eastern sectors have significant recreational potential, but their use is constrained by poor transport accessibility. The western sector with the center in the city of Onega is promising for the development of seaside relaxation tourism in summer and sports tourism in winter. The eastern sector with two centers in the villages of Pinega and Karpogory is promising for ecological, sports and excursion tourism throughout the year.
Considering the relevance of providing good accessibility to public transport and adequate non-motorized infrastructure to lower social inequality and exclusion, this study evaluates the public ...transport coverage and the quality of the walking infrastructure in the thirty barangays of Pasig City (Philippines). Using regression analysis, the research attempted to identify socioeconomic factors at the barangay level that correlated to the assessed walkability and public transport accessibility. It was found that barangays with less financial resources, having higher populations, and with a larger share of lowest monthly income households and informal settlements were more likely to have lower walkability. Similar results to explain poorer access to public transport were also observed. These results can be used to o identify disadvantaged barangays to prioritize for improvement for social inclusivity.
The article presents a method for modelling an intermodal graph of accessibility of urban areas. The accessibility of the city's territories is usually understood as a zone where a person can walk or ...get by transport for a certain time from a given point. Accessibility assessment is fundamental in the problems of computational urbanism and is used for a variety of applied spatial indexes and estimates. At the same time, traditional methods of assessing the transport accessibility of the urban environment require the creation of models of transport systems of the studied city, which is associated with significant costs. The situation is complicated by the peculiarities of the urban environment and the need to consider the movement of different types of transport in combination with walking. The method proposed in this article uses an alternative approach to assessing the accessibility of urban areas based on the construction of an intermodal accessibility graph. This makes it possible to use this algorithm in solving applied urban problems without the need to build complex transport models.
The article discusses the concept of transport system with a focus on the local transport system, as well as its role in the socio-economic development of the Russian Arctic. The empirical study is ...based on the materials of expeditions that took place on the Summer and Winter shores of the Onega Peninsula, as well as on the island territories of the Primorskiy district of the Arkhangelsk Oblast. The local transport system was analyzed in terms of its elements: infrastructure, regulatory system, vehicles used, information support, informal institutional system of transport support regulation, etc. The materials obtained during the expedition were supplemented with data on the organization of transport communication, timetables, logistics, and official information on the methods of organizing navigation on the Northern Dvina River and in the White Sea. On the basis of the theory of multiscale and the analysis of empirical data, it is concluded that the local transport system is the main factor determining the scenarios of socio-economic development of municipalities in the Russian Arctic. Transport connectivity of the Arctic zone should start with transformations “from below”, from the local transport system, taking into account local knowledge and institutions. Proposals for the development of the local transport network of the Arctic region are presented.
In the Philippines, discussions on making public transportation more accessible usually focus on the needs of persons with disabilities. We further expand this by considering “Passengers with Reduced ...Mobility” (PRMs) who also include those with travel limitations and other contextual factors. Through an online survey, the needs and satisfaction of road-based public transport users were solicited at various stages of the journey cycle (i.e. from planning until arrival at the destination terminal). The results showed that most PRMs only used public transport on an as-need basis. PRMs also expressed higher demand for information for trip planning purposes as well as assistive services in terminals and vehicles. Overall, PRMs expressed lower satisfaction with their public transportation experiences over non-PRMs. The results of the study can be used to inform short to long term accessibility plans, with the end goal of achieving a truly accessible road-based public transport system.