Using a stages of change approach to explore opportunities for increasing bicycle commuting

Given the potential benefits of bicycling to the environment, the economy, and public health, many U.S. cities have set ambitious goals for increasing the bicycle share of commute trips. The Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change, which seeks to describe how positive and permanent change can be fostered in individuals, may shed light on how cities can most effectively increase bicycle commuting. We use the model’s “stages of change” framework to explore the potential for increased bicycle commuting to the UC Davis campus in Davis, California. Our analysis uses data from the 2012 to 2013 UC Davis Campus Travel Survey, an annual online survey that is randomly administered to students and employees at UC Davis. Based on their responses to questions about current commute mode and contemplation of bicycle commuting, respondents are divided into five stages of change: Pre-contemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, and Maintenance. We construct a Bayesian multilevel ordinal logistic regression model to understand how differences in socio-demographic characteristics, travel attributes, and travel attitudes between individuals explain their membership in different stages of change. In addition, we use this model to explore the potential of various intervention strategies to move individuals through the stages of change toward becoming regular bicycle commuters. Our results indicate that travel attitudes matter more to progression toward regular commute bicycling than travel attributes, tentatively supporting the efficacy of “soft” policies focused on changing travel attitudes.     

Estimation of the determinants of bicycle mode share for the journey to work using census data

A model is presented that relates the proportion of bicycle journeys to work for English and Welsh electoral wards to relevant socio-economic, transport and physical variables. A number of previous studies have exploited existing disaggregate data sets. This study uses UK 2001 census data, is based on a logistic regression model and provides complementary evidence based on aggregate data for the determinants of cycle choice. It suggests a saturation level for bicycle use of 43%. Smaller proportions cycle in wards with more females and higher car ownership. The physical condition of the highway, rainfall and temperature each have an effect on the proportion that cycles to work, but the most significant physical variable is hilliness. The proportion of bicycle route that is off-road is shown to be significant, although it displays a low elasticity (+0.049) and this contrasts with more significant changes usually forecast by models constructed from stated preference based data. Forecasting shows the trend in car ownership has a significant effect on cycle use and offsets the positive effect of the provision of off-road routes for cycle traffic but only in districts that are moderately hilly or hilly. The provision of infrastructure alone appears insufficient to engender higher levels of cycling.

Using the built environment to oversample walk,transit, and bicycle travel

Characteristics of the built environment (BE) have been associated with walk, transit, and bicycle travel. These BE characteristics can be used by transportation researchers to oversample households from areas where walk, transit, or bicycle travel is more likely, resulting in more observations of these uncommon travel behaviors. Little guidance, however, is available on the effectiveness of such built environment oversampling strategies. This article presents measures that can be used to assess the effectiveness of BE oversampling strategies and inform future efforts to oversample households with uncommon travel behaviors. The measures are sensitivity and specificity, positive likelihood ratio (LR+), and positive predictive value (PPV). To illustrate these measures, they were calculated for 10 BE-defined oversampling strata applied post-hoc to a Seattle area household travel survey. Strata with an average block size of <10 acres within a ¼ mile of household residences held the single greatest potential for oversampling households that walk, use transit, and/or bicycle.     

Bicycle lane priority: Promoting bicycle as a green mode even in congested urban area

The main obstacles to boosting the bicycle as a mode of transport are safety concerns due to interactions with motorized traffic. One option is to separate cyclists from motorists through exclusive bicycle priority lanes. This practice is easily implemented in uncongested traffic. Enforcing bicycle lanes on congested roads may degenerate the network, making the idea very hard to sell both to the public and the traffic authorities. Inspired by Braess Paradox, we take an unorthodox approach to seeking latent misutilized capacity in the congested networks to be dedicated to exclusive bicycle lanes. The aim of this study is to tailor an efficient and practical method to large size urban networks. Hence, this paper appeals to policy makers in their quest to scientifically convince stakeholder that bicycle is not a secondary mode, rather, it can be greatly accommodated along with other modes even in the heart of the congested cities. In conjunction with the bicycle lane priority, other policy measures such as shared bicycle scheme, electric-bike, integration of public transport and bicycle are also discussed in this article. As for the mathematical methodology, we articulated it as a discrete bilevel mathematical programing. In order to handle the real networks, we developed a phased methodology based on Branch-and-Bound (as a solution algorithm), structured in a less intensive RAM manner. The methodology was tested on real size network of city of Winnipeg, Canada, for which the total of 30 road segments – equivalent to 2.77 km bicycle lanes – in the CBD were found.     

The influence of built environment to the trends in commuting journeys in the Netherlands

In this paper we describe commuting trends in the Netherlands in the past decade and examine the influence of urban form and travel accessibility on commuting journeys over time on the basis of data from the Dutch National Travel Survey. Exploratory analysis is performed to identify changes in commuting participation, departure time, commuting time, commuting distance and the modal split. Regression analysis and choice models are used to examine the influence of the built environment on commuting parameters over time. The results indicate that urban form has consistently influenced the parameters of commuting journey in the Netherlands in the last 10 years. However, the trend of the influence is unique for each commuting model. Some influences have become less significant in the last decade and some have become stronger.

The value of time and external benefits in bicycle appraisal

We estimate the value of time savings, different cycling environments and additional benefits in cost-benefit analysis of cycling investments. Cyclists’ value of travel time savings turns out to be high, considerably higher than the value of time savings on alternative modes. Cyclists also value other improvements highly, such as separated bicycle lanes. As to additional benefits of cycling improvements in the form of health and reduced car traffic, our results do not support the notion that these will be a significant part in a cost-benefit analysis. Bicyclists seem to take health largely into account when making their travel choices, implying that it would be double-counting to add total health benefits to the analysis once the consumer surplus has been correctly calculated. As to reductions in car traffic, our results indicate that the cross-elasticity between car and cycle is low, and hence benefits from traffic reductions will be small. However, the valuations of improved cycling speeds and comfort are so high that it seems likely that improvements for cyclists are cost-effective compared to many other types of investments, without having to invoke second-order, indirect effects. In other words, our results suggest that bicycle should be viewed as a competitive mode of travel and not primarily as a means to achieve improved health or reduced car traffic.     

Prioritizing bicycle paths in Belo Horizonte City,Brazil: Analysis based on user preferences and willingness considering individual heterogeneity

Using bicycles as a commuting mode has proven to be beneficial to both urban traffic conditions and travelers’ health. In order to efficiently design facilities and policies that will stimulate bicycle use, it is necessary to first understand people’s attitudes towards bicycle use, and the factors that may influence their preferences. Such an understanding will enable reliable predictions of bicycle use willingness level, based on which cycling facility construction can be reasonably prioritized.As people often have different perceptions on exercising, green transportation, and traffic conditions, effects of potentially influencing factors on people’s willingness of using bicycles tend to be highly heterogeneous. This paper uses a random parameter ordered probit model to analyze how travelers’ willingness of using bicycles is influenced by various socio-economic factors in Belo Horizonte City, Brazil, with the consideration of individual heterogeneity. The data was collected through the 2010 bicycle use survey in Belo Horizonte City. Results show that, first, the willingness of using bicycle is favored by middle income class household, and negatively related with commuting time. Second, people who rent apartments tend to be more willing to use bicycles. Third, if a person is currently walking a long time to work, he/she would be most willing to commute with a bicycle in the future. Those currently commuting a relatively short distance by motorcycle and bus follow this group in terms of willingness to commute by bicycle in the future. Car users seem to be difficult to convert to bicycle users. Moreover, the estimation shows clear evidence that significant individual heterogeneity indeed exists, especially for education level, necessitating the consideration of such an effect. With the calibrated model, residents’ willingness of using bicycle commuting is then estimated for the entire Belo Horizonte City using the 2010 Census and the 2012 O/D survey data. The results are cross validated using the bicycle path preference information, also obtained from the 2010 bicycle use survey.     

Policy options to support the adoption of electric vehicles in the urban environment

In this paper we discuss the effectiveness, efficiency and feasibility of policy measures that cities may adopt to stimulate the uptake and use of electric vehicles. Our analysis is based on an expert workshop in which municipal policy-makers used a group decision room system to exchange their experiences with electric vehicle related policies. We distinguish six categories of measures: supporting citizens and businesses, supporting charging-infrastructure build up, regulatory measures, raising awareness, government as lead user, and governing the transition with other levels of government. We find two feasible policy mixes of effective and efficient measures, one for cities that strive to be among the global frontrunners and one of no-regret policies that any city should adopt, if it wants to stimulate electric mobility.     

The built environment and travel behavior in urban China: A literature review

Interests in studying of the built environment impacts on travel behavior have proliferated from North America to other parts of the world including China. Until very recently, there has been very little research into travel behavior in China. However, during the last decade, there has been a fast growing interest in studying the built environment and travel behavior in Chinese cities, perhaps motivated by China’s unprecedented urbanization and rapid urban transport development. Case studies from China provide new insights into the impacts of built environment on travel behavior that can help to enrich existing scholarship. However, currently there is a generally poor understanding of the role played by Chinese research and how it has enriched the international literature. This paper aims to fill this gap by reviewing studies in and outside China by both Chinese and non-Chinese scholars. The focus is on the contribution of these studies to the international literature. We identify four areas of contribution: how the built environment has been developed and its implications for travel behavior; the importance of housing sources in defining residential built environment and explaining travel behavior; the unique Danwei (or work unit) perspective on jobs-housing relationships and commuting behavior; and the importance of neighborhood types in explaining travel behavior in Chinese cities. The findings from this review should be relevant for researchers interested in developing future studies that will further advance geographic knowledge of the built environment and travel behavior, specifically in China and with broader global contexts.     

An analysis of bicycle route choice preferences in Texas,US

In the US, the rise in motorized vehicle travel has contributed to serious societal, environmental, economic, and public health problems. These problems have increased the interest in encouraging non-motorized modes of travel (walking and bicycling). The current study contributes toward this objective by identifying and evaluating the importance of attributes influencing bicyclists’ route choice preferences. Specifically, the paper examines a comprehensive set of attributes that influence bicycle route choice, including: (1) bicyclists’ characteristics, (2) on-street parking, (3) bicycle facility type and amenities, (4) roadway physical characteristics, (5) roadway functional characteristics, and (6) roadway operational characteristics. The data used in the analysis is drawn from a web-based stated preference survey of Texas bicyclists. The results of the study emphasize the importance of a comprehensive evaluation of both route-related attributes and bicyclists’ demographics in bicycle route choice decisions. The empirical results indicate that travel time (for commuters) and motorized traffic volume are the most important attributes in bicycle route choice. Other route attributes with a high impact include number of stop signs, red light, and cross-streets, speed limits, on-street parking characteristics, and whether there exists a continuous bicycle facility on the route.

Cycle commuting in Belgium: Spatial determinants and ‘re-cycling’ strategies

This paper attempts to explain the spatial variation of the use of a bicycle for commuting to work at the level of the 589 municipalities in Belgium. Regression techniques were used and special attention was paid to autocorrelation, heterogeneity and multicollinearity. Spatial lag models were used to correct for the presence of spatial dependence and a disaggregated modelling strategy was adopted for the northern and southern parts of the country. The results show that much of the inter-municipality variation in bicycle use is related to environmental aspects such as the relief, traffic volumes and cycling accidents. Town size, distance travelled and demographic aspects also have some effect. In addition, there are regional differences in the effects of the structural covariates on bicycle use: the impact of variables such as traffic volume and cycling accidents differs substantially between the north and the south of the country. This paper also suggests that high rates of bicycle use in one municipality stimulate cycling in neighbouring municipalities, and hence that a mass effect can be initiated, i.e. more cycle commuting encourages even more commuters in the area to cycle. These findings provide some recommendations for decision-makers wishing to promote a shift from car to bicycle use.     

Comparative analysis of household car,motorcycle and bicycle ownership between Osaka metropolitan area,Japan and Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia

The interactions among different types of vehicle ownership including car, motorcycle and bicycle are examined by developing simultaneous vehicle ownership models in this study. Large scale person trip survey data for Osaka metropolitan area, Japan and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia are used for empirical analysis. The results suggest that population density at residential area significantly and negatively affects car ownership for both areas, and that the effects are larger for Osaka metropolitan area than for Kuala Lumpur. Also, bicycle ownership becomes higher at higher population density area for Osaka area, while higher at lower population density area for Kuala Lumpur, which represents the different usage patterns of bicycle between the two areas.

Determinants of bicycle commuting in the Washington,DC region: The role of bicycle parking,cyclist showers,and free car parking at work

This article examines the role of bicycle parking, cyclist showers, free car parking and transit benefits as determinants of cycling to work. The analysis is based on commute data of workers in the Washington, DC area. Results of rare events logistic regressions indicate that bicycle parking and cyclist showers are related to higher levels of bicycle commuting—even when controlling for other explanatory variables. The odds for cycling to work are greater for employees with access to both cyclist showers and bike parking at work compared to those with just bike parking, but no showers at work. Free car parking at work is associated with 70% smaller odds for bike commuting. Employer provided transit commuter benefits appear to be unrelated to bike commuting. Regression coefficients for control variables have expected signs, but not all are statistically significant.     

Safety-based path finding in urban areas for older drivers and bicyclists

This paper presents a safety-based path finding methodology for older drivers and bicyclists in an urban area. The paths are estimated based on costs consisting of both safety and travel time. Safety is evaluated against potential risk of a crash involving an older driver (or a bicyclist) with other vehicles present on the road. To accomplish this, simple formulations are developed for safety indicators of streets and intersections, which are actually generic irrespective of the type of road user. Traffic attributes such as speed and density, driver attributes such as perception-reaction time and street attributes of length and tire-to-road friction coefficient are taken into account in building the safety indicators. Thus, the safety indicators do not necessarily require historical crash data which may or may not be available during path finding. Subsequently, a multi-objective shortest path algorithm is presented that identifies the best path (the non-inferior path) from amongst a set of selected safest paths with due considerations to travel time incurred on each. A simple application example of the proposed methodology is demonstrated on an existing street network system from the City of College Station, Texas. The contributions of this research are twofold – first, the safety indicators can be used by planners in determining high crash potential sites – streets and/or intersections – and second, the safety-based path finding methodology developed in this paper can be integrated with modern day route planning devices and tools in guiding older drivers and bicyclists within an Intelligent Transportation Systems framework.     

Analysis of energy consumption of food transit in an urban agglomeration in Poland

The paper presents the results of research on operational energy consumption of a vehicle in conditions of urban transit in Poland. An important role in Intelligent Transportation Systems in the road transport is played by transit in urban agglomerations. The analysis was based on the use of telemetry systems and statistical analysis of the waveform of digital speed recording. The resulting empirical cumulative distribution functions of phases of acceleration and deceleration speeds allowed to determine the kinetic losses of the vehicle (fuel consumption). The statistical significance of differences between cumulative distribution functions was tested using the Smirnov–Kolmogorov test.     

Equity-oriented skip-stopping schedule optimization in an oversaturated urban rail transit network

In this study, we focus on improving system-wide equity performance in an oversaturated urban rail transit network based on multi-commodity flow formulation. From the system perspective, an urban rail transit network is a distributed system, where a set of resources (i.e., train capacity) is shared by a number of users (i.e., passengers), and equitable individuals and groups should receive equal shares of resources. However, when oversaturation occurs in an urban rail transit network during peak hours, passengers waiting at different stations may receive varying shares of train capacity leading to the inequity problem under train all-stopping pattern. Train skip-stopping pattern is an effective operational approach, which holds back some passengers at stations and re-routes their journeys in the time dimension based on the available capacity of each train. In this study, the inequity problem in an oversaturated urban rail transit network is analyzed using a multi-commodity flow modeling framework. In detail, first, discretized states, corresponding to the number of missed trains for passengers, are constructed in a space-time-state three-dimensional network, so that the system-wide equity performance can be viewed as a distribution of all passengers in different states. Different from existing flow-based optimization models, we formulate individual passenger and train stopping pattern as commodity and network structure in the multi-commodity flow-modeling framework, respectively. Then, we aim to find an optimal commodity flow and well-designed network structure through the proposed multi-commodity flow model and simultaneously achieve the equitable distribution of all passengers and the optimal train skip-stopping pattern. To quickly solve the proposed model and find an optimal train skip-stopping pattern with preferable system-wide equity performance, the proposed linear programming model can be effectively decomposed to a least-cost sub-problem with positive arc costs for each individual passenger and a least-cost sub-problem with negative arc costs for each individual train under a Lagrangian relaxation framework. For application and implementation, the proposed train skip-stopping optimization model is applied to a simple case and a real-world case based on Batong Line in the Beijing Subway Network. The simple case demonstrates that our proposed Lagrangian relaxation framework can obtain the approximate optimal solution with a small-gap lower bound and a lot of computing time saved compared with CPLEX solver. The real-world case based on Batong Line in the Beijing Subway Network compares the equity and efficiency indices under the operational approach of train skip-stopping pattern with those under the train all-stopping pattern to state the advantage of the train skip-stopping operational approach.     

Natural variability in exposure to fine particles and their trace elements during typical workdays in an urban area

Studies on the natural human exposures to fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) and their elements composition are practically non-existent in South America. In order to understand the natural exposure of the typical Brazilian population to PM_2.5 and their trace element composition, we measured PM_2.5 concentrations and collected mass on filters for nine continuous hours during a typical workday of volunteers. In addition, bus routes were performed at peak and non-peak periods, mimicking the routine activity of the population. Mean concentrations of PM_2.5 in the bus and car groups were similar while the fraction of BCe was higher for the bus group. For all routes, mean PM_2.5 concentrations were higher during peak than non-peak hours, with an average of 43.5 ± 33.1 μg m⁻³ and 14.3 ± 10.2 μg m⁻³, respectively. The trace elements S, K and Na originated mainly from vehicle emissions; Na was associated with the presence of biofuel in diesel. Toxic elements (Pb, Cr, Cu, Ni, Zn, Mn) were found at low levels as evident by the total hazard index that ranged from 2.15 × 10⁻⁰³ to 1.38 for volunteers. For all routes, the hazard index ranged from 2.25 × 10⁻⁰³ to 5.03. Average PM_2.5 respiratory deposition dose was estimated to be 0.60 μg/kg-hour for peak hours. Potential health damages to people during their movements and at workplaces close to the traffic were identified. Improvements in the design of the building to reduce the entrance of air pollutants as well as the use of filters in the buses could help to limit population exposure.     

Car use,commuting and urban form in a rapidly growing city: evidence from Beijing

The links between urban form and travel behaviour have been widely studied in the field of travel demand management. However, the existing literature is dominated by case studies from the developed countries. A study of a city in a developing and industrialising country can add some fresh evidence to the debate on the impacts of urban form on travel patterns. Using household survey data from Beijing, this paper finds that aspects of urban form have significant effects on workers' car use and the duration of travel by car in journeys to work, while controlling for socio-economic factors and households’ preferences related to residential location. The sprawling patterns of land development play a negative role in reducing motorised commuting trips and shortening vehicle hours travelled in the current processes of rapid urban expansion and motorisation. Since urban sprawl is greatly influenced by growing market forces, the findings in this paper reveal the negative effects of regulation–liberation of land development management on travel behaviour modification.     

Open PFLOW: Creation and evaluation of an open dataset for typical people mass movement in urban areas

Understanding people flow at a citywide level is critical for urban planning and commercial development. Thanks to the ubiquity of human location tracking devices, many studies on people mass movement with mobility logs have been conducted. However, high cost and severe privacy policy constraints still complicate utilization of these data in practice. There is no dataset that anyone can freely access, use, modify, and share for any purpose. To tackle this problem, we propose a novel dataset creation approach (called Open PFLOW) that continuously reports the spatiotemporal positions of all individual’s in urban areas based on open data. With fully consideration of the privacy protection, each entity in our dataset does not match the actual movement of any real person, so that the dataset can be totally open to public as part of data infrastructure. Because the result is shown at a disaggregate level, users can freely modify, process, and visualize the dataset for any purpose. We evaluate the accuracy of the dataset by comparing it with commercial datasets and traffic census indicates that it has a high correlation with mesh population and link-based traffic volume.     

Real-time automatic rescheduling strategy for an urban rail line by integrating the information of fault handling

In the operation of urban rails, faults are inevitable, which leads to deviation between the actual timetable and the planned timetable. In nowadays, timetable rescheduling strategies rarely integrate the information of fault handling. In this paper, we develop a real-time automatic rescheduling strategy, which integrates the dynamic information of fault handling. The rescheduled timetable is obtained by a mathematical optimization model, the constraints set of which is automatically generated and adjusted as more information of fault handling is feedback. Compared with the experience-based rescheduling methods, the automatic rescheduling strategy reacts more quickly, and uses the information of fault handling more efficiently. A simulation system for testing the automatic rescheduling strategy is built, which uses the data of the Beijing Yizhuang metro line. Via testing on the simulation system, the effectiveness and efficiency of the automatic rescheduling strategy are validated.