Exploring active transportation investments and associated benefits for municipal budgets: a scoping review

Municipalities play an important role in the planning and development of communities that support active transportation (AT), which refers to human-powered modes of travel, such as walking and cycling. Municipal-level stakeholders involved in land-use and transportation infrastructure planning consider multiple social, environmental and economic considerations to inform decision-making and investments in AT. Evidence around the fiscal benefits of AT investment for local governments has not been systematically identified. This scoping review sought to explore the existing evidence regarding investments in AT and opportunities for savings on municipal expenditures and revenue generation. In total, 7060 records were located and screened; of which 162 full-text articles were reviewed. Ultimately, 23 articles met our inclusion criteria and were included in this review. The available evidence focuses on potential economic benefits of AT in the areas of tax revenues, property values, consumer spending and employment, all of which are relevant sources of revenue generation in municipal operating budgets. An evidence gap was identified regarding AT infrastructure investments and benefits corresponding to municipal expenditures (e.g. maintenance cost savings). Notably, a large portion of literature was published after 2009, suggesting that municipal-level evidence on the fiscal benefits of AT investments may just be emerging.     

Residential built environment and walking activity: Empirical evidence of Jane Jacobs’ urban vitality

This study intends to empirically verify Jacobs’ urban vitality theory, which was based on the observations of her New York City neighborhood in the mid-20th century. To examine the relationship between the residential built environment and walking activity, we used telephone survey data consisting of 1823 valid samples from across Seoul, a city characterized by a high population density and a well-established public transportation system. Respondents were asked questions about their residential location, their demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, and their walking activities. This study then used geographic information systems to measure objective indicators of built environment variables within 500-meter buffer areas based on the home addresses of the respondents. Then, this study constructed multilevel regression models with walking activity as the dependent variable. Our results indicated that walking activity is associated with Jacobs’ six conditions for urban vitality, including land use mix, density, block size, building age, accessibility, and border vacuums.     

Modeling children’s school travel mode and parental escort decisions

Understanding of the activity-travel patterns of children is becoming increasingly important to various policy makers. Further, there is also a growing recognition that intra-household interactions need to be explicitly accommodated in travel models for realistic forecasts and policy evaluation. In the light of these issues, this paper contributes towards an overall understanding of the school-travel behavior of children and the related interdependencies among the travel patterns of parents and children. An econometric model is formulated to simultaneously determine the choice of mode and the escorting person for children’s travel to and from school. The 2000 San Francisco Bay Area Travel Survey (BATS) data are used in the model estimation process. Empirical results indicate that the characteristics of child like age, gender, and ethnicity, and employment and work flexibility characteristics of the parents have strong impacts on the mode choice decisions. In addition, the impacts of some of these attributes on the choice of mode to school are different from the corresponding impacts on the choice of mode from school. The distance between home and school is found to strongly and negatively impact the choice of walking to and from school, with the impact being stronger for walking to school. Several land-use and built-environment variables were explored, but were found not to be statistically significant predictors.

The role of residential self-selection in land use-travel research: a review of recent findings

ABSTRACT

Residential self-selection (RSS) is an important concern in the land use-travel research. Although many studies have addressed RSS during the past two decades, empirical results are inconsistent in terms of the existence, magnitude, and direction of self-selection bias. Moreover, recent studies substantiated other plausible associations within the theoretical framework of RSS, such as the endogeneity of travel attitudes. These further complicate the role of RSS in the land use-travel relationship. To improve understanding, this paper summarises recent progress in the RSS research, especially the studies published in the last decade. Specifically, we review three types of influences among the built environment, attitudes, and travel behaviour, and discuss unsolved problems within each type. We also discuss measurement issues of the built environment and attitudes in the RSS research. Because attitudes could be confounders, moderators, and mediators of the link between the built environment and travel behaviour, we recommend panel data with at least three waves of household travel surveys to address the complicated influences of attitudes. Future research needs to be more process-oriented to better understand the nature of RSS and its complex roles in the land use-travel research.     

Meta-analysis of the relationships between space syntax measures and pedestrian movement

ABSTRACT

Ample research has been conducted investigating the built environment impacts on pedestrian movement (PM). A clear division is also evident in the literature on this topic: one group tends to use geographic measures (metric distance) of the environment to explain pedestrian behaviour; the other group uses syntactic measures (visual distance). Many review articles have been published on the former. However, relatively little is known about the effect size (ES), directions, and consistency of syntactic measures in explaining PM. This paper fills this gap through a meta-analysis of published and unpublished studies on this topic spanning over 1975–2016, and answers the following five research questions: (a) What are the different measures used in the space syntax literature to explain PM?; (b) What are the magnitudes and directions of associations between space syntax measures and PM?; (c) Which space syntax measure has a more consistent relationship with PM?; (d) To what extent do the explanatory powers of different measures vary between their derivation methods?; and (e) What are the likely causes of variations of the reported results in prior studies? This research examined four syntactic measures (integration, connectivity, choice, and control) in a random effect model with 95% confidence interval (CI). The choice and integration measures were further investigated based on their operational approaches (topological, angular and metric). Results show that integration (ES?=?0.206, 95% CI?=?0.173–0.238, p?<?0.001), choice (ES?=?0.481, 95% CI?=?0.391–0.561, p?<?0.001), and connectivity (ES?=?0.305, 95% CI?=??0.225–0.696, p?=?0.257) measures positively influence PM with choice being the strongest predictor. Both connectivity and control (ES?=??0.001, 95% CI?=??0.117–0.115, p?=?0.990) were found to have a statistically insignificant impact. The choice and integration measures show stronger effects when derived using the angular approach (ES?=?0.493 for choice, and ES?=?0.502 for integration) compared to topological approach (ES?=?0.374 for choice, and ES?=?0.124 for integration). However, the reported results of all measures are highly heterogeneous, perhaps due to the differences in research design. The significance, magnitude, and consistency of integration and choice measures justify their relevance in built environment interventions to promote PM.     

A systematic review of disability’s treatment in the active school travel and children’s independent mobility literatures

While various forms of social difference (e.g. gender, age, race/ethnicity, and class) have been engaged in the active school travel (AST) and children’s independent mobility (CIM) literatures, one form has gone largely unconsidered: disability. Disregard for disability within these literatures is troubling, as it leaves children’s experiences of disability associated with independent mobility and school travel unquestioned, which in turn helps to allow their experiences of exclusion to persist. This paper presents a systematic review of the AST and CIM literatures that was undertaken with a view to providing insight into three questions. (1) To what extent is disability considered in the literatures in comparison to other forms of social difference? (2) How is disability engaged? (3) How could disability be approached differently such that experiences of children (and their households) living with disability are better accounted for moving forward (e.g. provided with equitable travel/mobility options)? Following a detailed consideration of the systematic review process, this paper presents figures and tables showing the extent to which disability has been considered in the two literatures in relation to other forms of social difference. To show how transport scholars and others are engaging disability, 29 studies were identified for in-depth, qualitative review. These studies are summarized and then discussed in relation to their geographic focus, the forms of disability they considered, their treatment of children’s perspective and agency, and the disability perspectives they employed. It is suggested that disability and its relationships with other forms of social difference, as well as the largely unquestioned normalcy of children’s disability experiences, warrant further inquiry within the AST and CIM literatures. We propose that drawing upon a critical ableist studies perspective may be useful for any such inquiry due to its focus on ableism and normalcy, as well as its recognition of the complex intersectionality of disability experiences.     

Alternative Modeling Approaches Used for Examining Automobile Ownership: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

Household vehicle ownership, and the associated dimensions including fleet size, vehicle type and usage, has been one of the most researched transport topics. This paper endeavors to provide a critical overview of the wide-ranging methodological approaches employed in vehicle ownership modeling depending on the ownership representation over the past two decades. The studies in the existing literature based on the vehicle ownership representation are classified as: exogenous static, exogenous dynamic, endogenous static and endogenous dynamic models. The methodological approaches applied range from simple linear regressions to complex econometrics formulations taking into account a rich set of covariates. In spite of the steady advancement and impressive evolution in terms of methodological approaches to examine the decision process, we identify complex issues that pose a formidable challenge to address the evolution of vehicle ownership in the coming years. Specifically, we discuss challenges with data availability and methodological framework selection. In light of these discussions, we provide a decision matrix for aiding researchers/practitioners in determining appropriate model frameworks for conducting vehicle ownership analysis.     

Travel demand model system for the information era

The emergence of new information technologies and recent advances in existing technologies have provided new dimensions for travel demand decisions. In this paper we propose a comprehensive travel demand modeling framework to identify and model the urban development decisions of firms and developers and the mobility, activity and travel decisions of individuals and households, and to develop a system of models that can be used by decision makers and planners to evaluate the effects of changes in the transportation system and development of information technologies (e.g. various tele-commuting, tele-services and Intelligent Transportation Systems).The implementation of an operational model system based on this framework is envisioned as an incremental process starting with the current best practice of disaggregate travel demand model systems. To this end, we present an activity-based model system as the first stage in the development of an operational model system.     

Evaluating gravel transport sustainability: A case study of Taiwan’s northeast corridor

We use social-eco-efficient analysis in the form of SEEbalance to evaluate gravel transport sustainability for trucking and two kinds of intermodal transportation. Results show that switching from trucks to intermodal transportation can improve the sustainability of gravel transportation in the northeast corridor of Taiwan. Sensitivity analysis shows that rail combined with truck intermodal transportation has competitive advantage despite the terminal’s location factor.     

Intermodal transport in freight distribution: a literature review

There has been significant growth in research on intermodal transport in freight distribution since the 1990s. Differentiating itself from previously published literature reviews, this paper evaluates the current state of this research using Systematic Literature Review methodology. The complementary aims are: (a) to identify the research lines developed and to propose a criterion for classifying the literature, and (b) to discuss the empirical evidence that identifies existing interrelationships. The analysis has enabled three main lines of research to be identified. The first research line, basic principles of intermodal transport, groups together works related to the definition of intermodal transport and the results obtained using this transportation system. The second, improvements to the way that intermodal transport systems work, frames elements and variables that impact intermodal transport systems’ logistics efficiency, such as quality of service, information and communication systems, and freight planning and linkages among system operators to provide an adequate service. Finally, the third line, intermodal transport system modelling, identifies the main variables used to optimise these transport systems, the different focuses and approaches used in modelling, and the advantages and disadvantages of each focus. These research lines take in more specific sublines that incorporate articles that develop related research questions. Lastly, the discussion of the content of each of these research sublines enables us to identify gaps in the literature and comment on directions for future research.