This article explores the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for public transport. Three elements are explored. Firstly, the short-term effects, including perceptions of public transport as a ...vector of virus transmission and shifts towards less-sustainable modes of transport. Secondly, we discuss key challenges such as the new difficulties of providing safe and reliable public transport services, the consequent barriers for the promotion of sustainable and healthy urban mobilities and the potential exacerbation of inequalities. Finally, we assess future research directions focussing on how pandemics should be monitored and the need to construct sustainable and human-scale cities.
This Covid-19 pandemic has put a strain on many developed world global cities, especially those with high population densities and high level of connectivity; European cities such as Milad, Paris, ...London, Madrid and Barcelona among others have experienced major outbreaks. Many cities are therefore experiencing a moment of global rethinking. In a few years, we have gone from an idea of extreme density that has led to the gentrification of megacities with ever smaller living spaces to completely antithetical proposals, such as the idea of " the 15-minutes city" where all services can be reached with a minimum travel time. Within this context, this paper aims to provide an overview of this concept and its discussion and application on the case of Milan, by conducting a desk research and analysing the official reports and documents. This paper discusses that the core idea of the 15-minute city is not new, as it can be traced back to the concept of Clarence Perry’s “neighborhood unit” in the early 1900s, as a self-contained residential neighbourhood, where essential services are accessible by walking distances. In the case of Milan, the “2020 Adaptation Strategy” confronts the second phase of the pandemic (after the major lockdowns in 2020) and makes references to creating a ‘15-minute city’, by redefining the spaces in neughbourhoods to meet the basic needs of its residence.
While the transportation sector is responsible for a growing share of greenhouse gas emissions, electric vehicles (EVs) offer solutions for greener mobility. The proportion of electric vehicles in ...transportation fleets is increasing, but wider adoption will not be possible without an appropriate charging infrastructure. The deployment of such infrastructure should follow a strategy that considers both the environment in which it is deployed and the behavior patterns of electric vehicle users. If these aspects are not taken into consideration, there is a risk of failing to meet users’ needs and generating additional costs. Here we review the literature on location problems for electric vehicle charging stations. We aim to draw up a comparative overview of approaches that have been used up to 2020 for optimizing the locations of charging infrastructure. We first briefly review the issues raised by the deployment of charging infrastructure, namely technical, economic and user acceptance concerns. We then look at the goals of the infrastructure location models in the literature. Schematically, those goals fall into two categories: minimizing the cost of charging infrastructure for a given level of service, or maximizing the service provided for a given cost. Finally, we focus on the approaches used to achieve these goals. Three categories of approaches are identified: node, path, and tour- or activity-based approaches. We then discuss these approaches in relation to technical, economic and user acceptance factors in order to provide a comprehensive analysis for stakeholders involved in EV charging infrastructure planning. Directions are given for future research to develop models that better reflect the real-world picture.
•Large-scale diffusion of electric vehicles requires a well-adapted charging infrastructure.•Deploying charging infrastructure addresses technical, economic and user related issues.•Node, path and tour based approaches are used to deploy charging infrastructure.•Charging infrastructure deployment must be done with a coherent agenda.
The rapid urbanization of large cities poses significant challenges to residents' well-being, particularly regarding mobility patterns, infrastructure, and environmental pollution. While extensive ...research has explored the societal impacts of urbanization, effectively identifying, and addressing critical urban areas remains a complex task. This study proposes utilizing data-driven urban approaches to guide decision-making for urban planners, architects, and policymakers by identifying key infrastructure areas crucial for improving mobility and sustainability. Leveraging open data urban repositories, the study aims to develop a data analytics pipeline to identify urban infrastructure points for enhanced, accessible, sustainable, and healthy mobility. This research focuses on understanding urban factors influencing pedestrian and cyclist movement to promote active behaviors, thus enhancing citizens' health and quality of life. The study hypothesizes that the developed methodology, employing a multi-stage data analysis pipeline and clustering algorithms, effectively evaluates walkability and cyclability in urban environments. Using Barcelona as a case study allows for a comprehensive demonstration of the methodology's potential outcomes without compromising general applicability. The data-driven study explores accessibility and mobility variations, addressing issues of affordability and barriers in new micro-mobility solutions, and contributing valuable insights to informed policymaking for global net-zero transitions.
•Urbanization Challenges: Examines the impact of city population growth on mobility, infrastructure, and pollution.•Data Science Advances: Uses data science to identify hotspots for sustainable, healthy mobility.•Pedestrian and Cyclist Focus: Studies factors affecting pedestrian and cyclist movement to promote healthy lifestyles.•Contributions to Policy Making: Provides data-driven insights for global sustainable mobility policies.•Global Applicability: Findings from Barcelona can be applied to other urban areas worldwide.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted society as we knew it in a variety of ways, with especially severe impacts on low-income households. Even before COVID-19, Metro Boston was witnessing a rise in ...private car ownership and decreasing mass transit ridership, further exacerbated by a historical spatial mismatch that made low-income commuters relatively more dependent on mass transit. Accounts of overcrowded buses and trains since early March have heightened psychological dread among regular transit commuters, some of whom have already purchased a private car or intend to do so within the next year. Uncertainty around transit service frequency and erosion of trust in the MBTA are the primary challenges for rebuilding transit rider confidence, which is likely to be a long and slow process. Low transit ridership levels can lead to fiscal challenges on the horizon and consequent service cuts, which necessitate the need for adopting a multi-modal approach to affordable and sustainable urban mobility. A narrow window is available to discourage a further shift to cars that will further cannibalize transit. Given the diversity of mobility services available in Metro Boston, designing a MaaS pilot with close attention to technological integration and cost salience can be crucial in showcasing the value of multi-modal and cross-modal accessibility. Such programs must be synergistic with concurrent transit service improvements and car-commute disincentives, such as in-town parking charges and road-use charges, without impeding access to affordable mobility for low-income and essential workers. Looking at the various agile policy responses of several cities in Metro Boston over the last few months, we are cautiously optimistic that sustainable mobility will become a major theme in urban and regional mobility policies in the post-COVID recovery period.
•Metro Boston was witnessing increasing car ownership and decreasing transit ridership pre-COVID.•After COVID-19, transit service uncertainty and fear of overcrowding have led to erosion of trust in the MBTA.•18% of zero-car households intend to purchase a car because of COVID-19, 26% among them within the next year.•ICT-enabled mobility services can motivate MaaS programs, but cost salience and multi-stakeholder coordination are key challenges.•Car-commuting disincentives and transit-centered multi-modal programs are both necessary for post-COVID sustainable mobility.
In order to achieve gradual but timely decarbonisation of the transport sector, it is essential to evaluate which types of vehicles provide a suitable environmental performance while allowing the use ...of hydrogen as a fuel. This work compares the environmental life-cycle performance of three different passenger cars fuelled by hydrogen: a fuel cell electric vehicle, an internal combustion engine car, and a hybrid electric vehicle. Besides, two vehicles that use hydrogen in a mixture with natural gas or gasoline were considered. In all cases, hydrogen produced by wind power electrolysis was assumed. The resultant life-cycle profiles were benchmarked against those of a compressed natural gas car and a hybrid electric vehicle fed with natural gas. Vehicle infrastructure was identified as the main source of environmental burdens. Nevertheless, the three pure hydrogen vehicles were all found to be excellent decarbonisation solutions, whereas vehicles that use hydrogen mixed with natural gas or gasoline represent good opportunities to encourage the use of hydrogen in the short term while reducing emissions compared to ordinary vehicles.
•Environmental performance comparison between different hydrogen-powered vehicles.•Comparison between fuel cell and hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicles.•Life cycle assessment of hybrid electric vehicles fed with hydrogen.•Natural gas-hydrogen and gasoline-hydrogen vehicles are assessed.•Vehicles fuelled with renewable hydrogen are excellent decarbonisation solutions.
To be resilient to all the challenges of climate change, the urban system must decline its strategies into two types of interventions that are connected to each other: facing and resisting extreme ...atmospheric events thanks to specific technical interventions and activating the community to be able to adapt and react to the changes. Developing a resilient city as constituted by these aspects is the fundamental step to obtaining plans that can be truly effective in the event of a crisis. Since the end of the 20th century, different policies have been implemented to make cities and territories increasingly resilient. In particular, local administrations have been active in experimenting with good practices. This article illustrates an example of the approach of the city of Brescia (Italy) to address climate change. The administration approved a Climate Transition Strategy in June 2021 with the aim of addressing climate change through adaptation, mitigation, participation, and involvement actions. Mitigation and adaptation actions have several objectives, including reducing climate-changing emissions. The experimentation of a system of incentives for sustainable mobility, already foreseen in the existing planning with the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP), is part of this framework. This article aims to illustrate the ideas behind the experimentation of a reward system for the city of Brescia, investigating how to change the behavior of users, the different existing reward systems, and some examples of actual case studies. In order to change habits and create new patterns of behavior toward sustainable travel, it is considered essential to develop a reward system allowing people to have the ability, the opportunity, and the motivation to change their habits. However, this system should be supported by planning aimed at improving the efficiency, safety, and sustainability of urban mobility.
The recent pandemic has considerably changed urban transportation while highlighting the weaknesses of the current transport modes. The crisis provided a unique opportunity to redesign the urban ...mobility plans in a more sustainable and resilient way. This study captured the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent restrictive measures on citizens’ commuting habits and travel mode choice in two Cretan cities with academic communities and intense seasonality of tourism, in two phases (four periods) before, during, and after the quarantine. The sample consisted of 308 (1st phase) and 193 (2nd phase) citizens, 60% and 30% permanent residents of Chania and Rethymno, respectively.
During the weeks before the pandemic, 4/10 participants opted for travelling by car daily, either as a driver or as a passenger; almost the same ratio chose walking; 1/10 used public transport (bus). During the first week of the quarantine, one-quarter had decreased car usage and opted for sustainable transport modes (walking, cycling, public transport). The population who chose walking 1–2 times weekly almost doubled.
Nevertheless, most factors were found to affect men and women differently; personal safety and road safety are significantly more important for women; ecological footprint is a less essential parameter for men’s travel mode choice.
Private vehicle use still holds a considerable role in urban transportation, and noteworthy is due to the sharp decline in public transit in January–February and April and the meager percentage of public transport ridership (1%).
The analysis and modelling could be useful in the future design of more sustainable and resilient mobility strategies.
•Identification of the critical implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban mobility.•Two Cretan popular tourism urban destinations (Chania and Rethymno) were analysed.•The citizens’ performance was modelized on two factors: “car restrictions’ driven” and “secondary”.•The analysis and modelling would be exploitable in the future design of more resilient mobility measures.
Starting from the relationship between urban planning and mobility management, TeMA has gradually expanded the view of the covered topics, always following a rigorous scientific in-depth analysis. ...This section of the Journal, Review Notes, is the expression of a continuous updating of emerging topics concerning relationships among urban planning, mobility and environment, through a collection of short scientific papers. The Review Notes are made of four parts. Each section examines a specific aspect of the broader information storage within the main interests of TeMA Journal. In particular, the Urban Practices section aims at producing, analyzing and reporting data on recent and relevant policies in the urban domain. The present note in particular reports on the recent initiatives undertaken by two major Southern Italian cities to foster sustainable mobility: Palermo and Cagliari. To this aim, the note briefly introduces the legal background and current developments of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP), a framework developed by the European Commission to support local administrations in developing holistic urban mobility strategies. This is followed by (i) an overview of the mobility situations in Palermo and Cagliari and by (ii) an analysis of the objectives, the strategies and the measures set in their respective SUMPs.
This work analyses changes in traffic flow and vehicle fleet segmentation from Jul-2020 to Dec-2021 in Bahía Blanca, a medium-sized Argentinian city. We obtained the data by manual counting watching ...videos provided by the city's security cameras. During the different stages and restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, fluctuations appeared in the traffic flow. The motorized vehicle flow was gradually increasing during pandemic, reaching in Nov-2021 levels close to those reported in Mar-2020 (pre-pandemic). Moreover, an increase in sustainable micro-mobility (bicycles and e-scooters) was detected, as well as changes in the city's peak hours. This study provides relevant information on how urban mobility is changing. In consequence, new policies that could lead us to a people-centred and more sustainable city could be created.
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