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.
•Sustainable urban mobility transitions impact emotional commuting experiences.•Introducing a new commuting mode impacts the emotional experiences of commuters.•A new commuting mode impacts the ...emotional experiences of non-adopters.•The emotional commuting experiences are dynamic.
Sustainable urban mobility transitions require various measures that impact peoples’ everyday lives. Implementing these measures, such as transport infrastructure projects, requires public acceptance. However, there is a lack of research on how sustainable urban mobility transitions impact commuters’ emotional experiences. This study aims to understand the formation of emotional commuting experiences and to analyse the impact of the introduction of a tramway on those experiences. The findings are mainly based on qualitative data (33 interviews) but also on quantitative data on the participants’ commuting behaviour collected in a Finnish city, Tampere, which launched a new tramline a couple of months prior to data collection. The research shows a variety of triggers for negative and positive emotional commuting experiences and highlights the role of critical incidents in the formation of emotional experiences. It reveals how launching a tram in a city impacts emotional commuting experiences on many levels, even for those who do not change their main mode of commuting. It also shows the dynamics involved in emotional commuting experiences, demonstrating how emotional experiences in the construction phase may differ greatly from those after the new commuting mode has been launched. Based on the findings, we suggest that in order to guarantee public support for sustainable urban transport projects, practitioners should recognise the wide range of emotional experiences associated with commuting, even for those who do not adopt the new mode of transport, and take these experiences into account not only during the lengthy infrastructure-building phase but also during the utilisation phase.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
The study presents a comprehensive analysis of the integration of Photovoltaic (PV)/wind systems with electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, enhanced by green hydrogen production based on existing ...EV load profiles across Kentucky. It explores the use of excess PV energy to charge Lithium-ion batteries, potentially supplemented by on-grid power during periods of lower electricity costs. The research includes the development of predictive models for hydrogen production and its subsequent use in hydrogen-powered vehicles. The techno-economic assessment reveals that such integration exhibits consistent economic viability, with minimal variations in key financial indicators like the levelized cost of electricity, payback period, and PV/wind energy fraction. The study also highlights green hydrogen production for on-grid PV/wind power charging the electrolyzer leads to the highest production cost (∼13 USD/Kg) compared to off-peak grid and a grid/PV/wind combination (∼6 USD/Kg). The projected hydrogen output is poised to support a significant number of light and heavy-duty vehicles by 2040, indicating promising potential for low-carbon transportation in Kentucky.
•The techno-economic feasibility of on-grid PV-based EV charging stations is studied in Kentucky.•The historical EV load profiles are used for Li-Ion batteries during low tariff periods.•The feasibility of using excess PV energy is assessed for green hydrogen production.•The projection models of green hydrogen production are developed to assess hydrogen vehicles.
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.
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 European capitals to foster sustainable mobility: Rome (IT) and Madrid (ES). 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 Rome and Madrid and by (ii) an analysis of the objectives, the strategies and the measures set in their respective SUMPs. A comparative analysis of the two SUMPs is proposed in the last paragraph as summary factsheet of the contribution.
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