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Ports are severely challenged by the uncertainty of the transportation environment. To evaluate the stability of maritime transportation network in Northeast Asia under port disruption, a network stability analysis model based on node failure rate that considers static and structural, dynamic and functional is proposed in this paper. In this model, the stability of the maritime transportation network is redefined. Based on complex network theory, the statistical topological parameters and evolution of the network are quantitatively analyzed. The active response and passive adaptation process of the maritime transportation network to the failure rate of the port are analyzed. The evaluation results illustrate that the initial stability of the port is proportional to the non-redundant connections and independence of the port. Network location advantages profoundly affect the probability of port failures. The diffusion of port failures in maritime transportation is phased, and the network is adaptive to port disruptions and has high stability. These results contribute to better planning of maritime transportation routes and strategies for port calls by strategic planners of shipping companies. • Node pressure is introduced to quantify the probability of node failure. • A network stability model that combines static and structural, dynamic and functional. • The number of non-redundant links in the port determines its initial stability. • The port's network location advantage is correlated with the port's failure probability. • The impact of failures on marine transportation is phased [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional transportation planning emphasized the direct economic benefits of transportation infrastructure. While there is a growing awareness of the environmental consequences, social impacts are frequently overlooked due to methodological complexities and political neglect. Although existing literature acknowledges the existence of transportation-related social exclusion, it primarily concentrates on quantifiable and immediate short-term social outcomes arising from improved accessibility and affordability, which facilitate place-to-place interactions and activities. There has been limited exploration of the more intricate and indirect societal impacts associated with transportation. This paper argues that new transportation infrastructure not only affects mobility and travel experiences but also has deeper social impacts on the sense of place. These effects may extend to broader benefits, including academic performance, by influencing place identity, attachment, and dependency, which in turn affect daily activities unrelated to travel. Our study focuses on a university student community (N = 323), a pivotal future workforce, and investigates how the introduction of a new metro line passing through the campus reduces commuting time, subsequently enhancing academic productivity. Employing structural equation modeling method, our analysis reveals that sense of place acts as a mediator between travel experience and student engagement under the influence of transportation mode choice. These findings may have broad applicability in identifying indirect social impacts of transportation infrastructure, thus providing insights for investment decisions. • Place-centered approach for assessing social impact of transport infrastructure. • Focus on a student community as non-working population but future workforce. • Investigate deeper/wider impact to/from sense of place on academic productivity. • Case study of a recent metro extension project, Shatin to Central Link, in Hong Kong. • Switching from bus to train enhances SoP and academic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local authorities have a strategic role in mitigating the environmental impacts of the transport sector. However, they struggle to integrate environmental issues into their decision-making processes, especially planning. In the European context of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan approach and Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs), this paper scrutinises three French localities to determine the current best practices and limitations for designing mobility plans and integrating environmental issues. Several limitations are identified: (1) limited expertise in defining and characterising actions and objectives, which complexifies plans' design, understanding, and monitoring; (2) a lack of a framework to conduct long-term quantitative environmental assessments and to use the results to influence decision effectively; and (3) monitoring processes are barely described in the documents, and the planning horizon where objectives are defined is not in sync with the indicators' mandatory evaluation period. This French case study thus reveals that European planning practices must be further analysed and improved to deal with the rising environmental concerns, e.g. through an operational framework to design mobility plans with effective integration of environmental issues. • Planning supports local authorities in moving towards a more sustainable mobility. • There is no robust approach to defining and characterising actions and objectives. • Robust long-term quantitative assessments are lacking to support planning. • Monitoring modalities are scarcely described in plans and SEAs. • Improving planning frameworks would help the integration of environmental issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address the growing uncertainties in the future transportation industry, planners and engineers have identified and implemented scenario planning, a multi-step and strategic approach, in long-range transportation planning. A comprehensive examination of how equity is envisioned, planned, and analyzed during this process remains absent, despite several key guidelines of scenario planning exercises. This paper conducts a systematic literature review focusing on how equity has been considered and evaluated in scenario planning. The resources include academic papers, agency reports, and materials from the recent scenario planning conference, the 2nd Conference on Scenario Planning in Transportation hosted by the Transportation Research Board. This paper examines equity in scenario planning in three important ways: 1) the ways equity has been integrated across steps; 2) how equity analysis has evolved; and 3) when it is necessary to consider equity. This work adds value to the existing body of knowledge by presenting the policy implications based on the review of the current scenario planning research and practices. Early policy recommendations include the need for more vertical equity evaluations, the construction of robustness and justice indicators, and the adoption of a flexible mindset of planning for rather than being fixated on a single scenario. • A systematic literature review focusing on equity analysis in scenario planning. • It is vital to conduct policy robustness analyses incorporating equity. • More vertical equity research needs to be incorporated. • Having the mindset of equity planning for in more than one scenario is critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The usefulness of transportation project evaluation depends on the completeness of its benefit measures. Since transportation networks are intrinsically spatial, transportation improvement projects have spatial access and location characteristics that can lead to a variety of non-user economic benefits. Recent research has enabled us to better understand how spatial context and spatial heterogeneity play further roles in generating efficiency gains for non-users, in the form of productivity, income, and cost savings for both private and public sectors of the economy. This paper draws upon that body of research to expand our understanding of the means by which transportation projects can generate economic efficiency gains, and approaches needed to measure them. It covers topics beyond those captured by current definitions of "wider economic benefits," including additional sources of scale economies associated with freight distribution and connectivity, and further public and private sector economic gains enabled by environmental and social inclusion improvement. It points to ways that non-user economic benefits can be more comprehensively defined and better measured by recognizing their spatial scale, context, and threshold effects. It also identifies ways that current benefit measurement methods introduce unintended bias into transportation investment decision-making through omission and mismeasurement. The result is a case for a refresh of thinking about how we classify and recognize non-user economic benefits in transportation evaluation, and how we apply transportation planning and economic models to support their measurement. • Transport decisions biased when non-user benefits are ignored or mis-measured. • Non-user economic benefits depend on spatial access, proximity, or connectivity. • Spatial scale, context, and heterogeneity affect measurement of non-user benefit. • Benefits from freight density, virtual density, effective density, non-user cost. • Rigid travel modeling standards hold back non-user benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic analysis zone (TAZ) is the basic unit of urban transportation planning. The appropriateness of TAZ delineation will affect the rationality of transportation planning and the accuracy of transportation analysis, and thus affect the final planning decision-making. However, in the big data era, there is still a lack of methods to integrate multi-source data for TAZ delineation. How to effectively fuse multi-source heterogeneous data in the TAZ delineation process is still an unsolved technical difficulty. To fill this gap, this paper designs a multi-source data-driven stepwise strategy to solve the TAZ delineation problem by creating a zoning system with zones showing homogeneous mobility behaviors and containing homogeneous land use characteristics. Firstly, mining the spatial-temporal travel features and land use information of transit stations and parcels from multi-source data, including transit smart card data, ride-hailing data, bike-sharing trip data, and point-of-interest (POI) data. Then, a core parcel determination algorithm which mainly consists of Fuzzy C-Means station clustering and a constructed parcel core degree function is proposed to generate the core parcels of each potential TAZ. After that, parcels are clustered around the core ones into TAZs through a multi-feature driven clustering algorithm, in the process of which the homogeneity within TAZs is guaranteed. Finally, the optimal zoning system is obtained by comparing the information loss calculation result of multiple zoning schemes. Taking Beijing as a case study area, 624 TAZs are obtained by applying the proposed method. The delineation result is comparatively analyzed with TAZs obtained by the traditional delineation method and a baseline method by applying multi-indicator measurement. The result reveals that the presented approach can promote the rationality of TAZ delineation. • A stepwise delineation model is proposed, which can fuse multi-source heterogeneous data and generate TAZs by data-driven. • The method ensures the optimal homogeneous zoning results in terms of mobility behaviours and land use within each zone. • The effectiveness of the delineation method is verified by taking Beijing as a case study area. • This paper provides innovative ideas on how to integrate multi-source big data to improve transportation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) present enormous uncertainties and challenges for future urban transport and mobility. While urban and transportation planning have significant roles to play in shaping these futures, a critical challenge is identifying and reconciling divergent values and competing visions in relation to this potentially disruptive transport technology and the associated mobility services. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of a participatory multi-criteria visioning and appraisal framework and methodology to enable stakeholders to envision, identify and interrogate essential tensions between imagined AV futures and long-term transport and mobility imperatives. Based on workshops with stakeholders at the forefront of policy and practice, and academia in Greater Manchester (UK) and Melbourne (Australia), we reveal several insights. Regarding the prospects of AVs, our participants are neither 'opponents' nor 'evangelists', but instead, manifest the contrasting attitudes and perspectives of excitement, optimism, ambivalence, scepticism and uncertainty all at the same time. In the visions outlined and appraised, our stakeholders identify AVs prospects in various use cases, such as public transport, personal and shared-use and urban freight and delivery applications, while at the same time recognising the inherent contradictions between automated driving futures outlined and imperatives such as reversing auto-mobility and creating safe and inclusive urban environments. Finally, the study brings to the fore the significant role of governance in mediating the politics and resolving contestations in critical areas including data management and privacy, cybersecurity and implementing viable business models and ownership arrangements. • Develop and apply participatory multi-criteria framework to envision and appraise automated driving futures. • Identify and interrogate essential tensions between imagined AV futures and long-term transport and mobility imperatives. • Identify AVs prospects in various use cases, such as public transport, personal and shared-use. • Inherent contradictions between automated driving, reversing auto-mobility and creating safe urban environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision-making processes related to transportation systems are often very complex, belonging to the class of "wicked problems" in social studies. The literature and the media abound in examples of transportation planning "failures" including decisions made, delayed or withdrawn without any traceable motivations, public opposition, public opposition, extra costs/implementation times and outright cancellation, wrong traffic/revenue forecasts. Planning failures stem from several causes, including technical errors in forecasting predictable effects, lack of consensus, new governance cycles and inability to recognize the intrinsic uncertainty affecting some key variables. The underlying assumption of this paper is that the quality of the decision-making process critically depends on how the process is structured and managed. The paper proposes a conceptual model to represent and organize transport planning as a cognitive decision-making process with strong involvement of different stakeholders in various stages, accounting for different levels of uncertainty and including short- and long-term decisions options. The result is a planning process that allows for changes in objectives, strategies and decisions during different stages of the process itself, as is usually the case when different governance and socio-economic cycles succeed over time. However, the process maintains a form of procedural consistency and is intended to counteract the "Penelope syndrome", whereby decisions made under previous governance cycles are undone regardless of their merits and costs. The real-life implementation of the proposed model requires strong "political commitment" to an open and accountable decision-making process, a technical structure able to act as "process owner" coordinating technical and engagement activities, and a general societal attitude towards organized participation to public decision making. The proposed model was applied to the Regional Transportation Plan of Veneto in Italy where the above conditions applied. A number of lessons were learnt from that exercise: i) stakeholders' engagement revealed an important potential to manage uncertainty and increase consensus; ii) flexibility and robustness with respect to medium–to–high uncertainty levels already recognized at the time of the plan (immediately before the COVID-19 crisis) were an appreciated feature of the plan; iii) separation between mature decisions and those needing further analysis was a success strategy, reducing political "decision costs" (from naysaying) by delaying decisions still recognizing underlying needs; iv) reduced decision time (a largely bi-partisan vote in less than one year). • Transport-related decision-making process may lead to unsatisfactory results (failures). • The quality of the decision-making process is a key factor for a successful planning and design. • A novel cognitive participative decision-making model under uncertainty levels is proposed. • The application of the model to the Regional Transportation Plan of Veneto (Italy) is also discussed. • A number of lessons learned were derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As evidence of the health impacts of transportation investments has grown, planners have increasingly used health impact assessments (HIAs) to evaluate transportation plans, projects, and policies. Most HIAs to date, however, have been limited in their ability to quantify health impacts due to a lack of validated methods and tools, scarcity of disaggregate and locally-relevant data, and cost. This paper presents the development and application of a quantitative HIA tool designed to address these and other common limitations of existing HIAs. Developed through a grant from the San Diego Association of Governments and the San Diego County Health and Human Services, the tool is based on detailed modeled regression analyses associating the built environment with physical activity, safety, diabetes, hypertension, and asthma in a large sample of California Health Interview Survey participants. The tool allows users to enter built environment characteristics for baseline and future development scenarios and estimate corresponding health impacts. This paper describes the development of this tool and its application to the Palomar Gateway District rail transit station area in San Diego County. The results suggest that plan-endorsed projected build-out is associated with increased physical activity from walking for transportation, park visitation, and reductions in type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Potential for increased exposure to air pollution among children and teens may, however, attenuate some of these benefits. Quantifying both the positive and the negative health outcomes of transportation investments can inform proposals and reduce health risks. This study demonstrates how the application of an evidence-based software tool can support the HIA process and create empirical evidence useable within transportation decisions and planning practice. • Health impacts were integrated into a scenario planning platform. • Methods documented to create the public health assessment model. • Transit-oriented development can promote physical activity and reduce chronic disease. • Health benefits of transit-oriented development can be compared in future scenarios. • Scenario planning with health can further inform decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s, U.S. metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) have had increasing room to shape the extent to which public transit benefits from regional transportation spending. Federal law has given MPOs widening latitude over this period to use highway-oriented funding for transit investment. Yet, concerns that public transit operators—and, by extension, transit needs—have been underrepresented in MPO decision-making are longstanding. This paper reports on the first comprehensive inventory of transit representation on MPO decision-making boards. MPOs and the planning process they oversee allow metro regions to tap federal funds, and together MPOs approve billions in metropolitan transportation investment across the U.S. We study these important institutions in the transportation landscape and how they provide for transit participation. We find that transit's actual voting representation on MPOs is somewhat higher than previously estimated, suggesting that recent federal policies have modestly increased formal transit involvement in investment decisions. We also find that different forms of board representation for transit—direct and indirect—can produce disparities in transit's influence from one region to the next. These findings reveal the impact of federal transportation laws on metropolitan scale decision-making and highlight some of the enduring institutional challenges to broadening participation in regional transportation governance. They also pave the way for further studies of the impact of MPO representation on transit expenditures by MPOs. • The first comprehensive inventory of transit representation in US metropolitan planning is developed. • Transit has no direct vote on the MPO policy board in 36% of large metro regions (over 200,000 population). • Federal requirements that transit have direct voting representation in regional decision-making were contentious. • While transit operators value direct over indirect board representation, MPOs sought indirect representation for transit. • Few MPOs that represent transit indirectly document how they do so, reducing transparency and accountability in regional transportation governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demand forecasting is an essential task in many industries and the transportation sector is no exception. This is because accurate forecasts are a fundamental aspect of any rationale planning process and an essential component of intelligent transportation systems. In the context of public transit, forecasts are needed to support different level of planning and organisational processes. Short-term forecast, typically a few hours in the future, are developed to support real-time operations. Long-term forecast, typically 5 years or more in the future, are essential for strategic planning. Those two forecast horizons have been widely studied by the academic community but surprisingly little research deal with forecast between those two ranges. The objective of this paper is therefore twofold. First, we proposed a generic modelling approach to forecast next 365 days ridership in a public transit network at different levels of spatiotemporal aggregation. Second, we illustrate how such models can assist public transit operators and transit agencies in monitoring ridership and supporting recurrent tactical planning tasks. The proposed formulation is based on a multiplicative decomposition that combines tree-based models with trend forecasting. The evaluation of models on unseen data proves that this approach generates coherent forecast. Different use cases are then depicted. They demonstrate that the resulting forecast can support various recurrent tactical tasks such as setting future goals, monitoring ridership or supporting the definition of service provision. Overall, this study contributes to the growing literature on the use of automated data collection. It confirms that more sophisticated statistical methods can help to improve public transportation planning and enhance data-driven decision making. • Examines the need for medium-term forecasting in public transit systems. • Operational modelling framework to forecast ridership one year ahead at different levels of spatiotemporal aggregation. • Outlines different applications of the forecasts for tactical planning and ridership monitoring. • Exploitation of archived passive data can enhance data-driven decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the impact of the different modes of transport in the economy of Andalusia. This assessment makes use of multipliers analysis based on a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM). It has been performed a breakdown of output multipliers as a sum of direct, indirect and induced effects, and the salary and employment multipliers have also been calculated. The starting point is the creation of a SAM from the existing one of year 2010, but disaggregating the sector of transport into their different modes. Thanks to this, we establish the different impact in the economy of each mode of transport, highlighting their different performance. Regarding freight transport, train offers better effects in terms of output multipliers than transport by road. In transport of passengers, the impact of high speed train is more important than air transport, two modes that compete in some routes. The results in this paper are the kind that is of highest interest to policy makers, moreover when large investments are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This position paper places transport costs in a longitudinal, life-course oriented perspective. It argues that travel behaviour and the choice of residence may be considered two intertwined decision frameworks made by individuals/households that in turn can be understood within the broader context of mobility biographies. The interrelations between mobility biographies and transport costs are on multiple levels. Firstly, they refer to different types of cost, including user costs, costs for transport provision and external costs. Secondly, mobility biographies and, specifically, residential self-selection may be affected by transport (user) costs, while at the same time they work as input factors for transport costs on all cost levels. The paper outlines these thoughts and discusses the consequences for spatial planning and transport planning. It suggests a strong planning system in which guidelines for travel and residential choice are set by public planning organisations rather than by the market. This is likely to help spare future households increasing transport costs, and costs for transport provision and external costs will be reduced as well. Further, it argues for a shift away from the happiness debate and towards the notion of dignity in transport studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a rare event in transport infrastructures: the case of the Portuguese merger of its road and railway infrastructures companies. There is little evidence internationally of mergers in transport companies, and most of it is focusses on mergers in the same sector. This merger was based on the need for Portugal to optimize the use of its road and railway network, and also to increase the efficiency of the large investments made. The new company no longer positions itself as an investor and constructor of infrastructures, but is rather as a provider of multimodal mobility. This merger created scope for a better service, increased revenues, the reduction of costs, all through synergies which allow for a more financially-sustainable operator. This paper describes the merger, its strategic and operational objectives, and also the changes in the management. This paper presents some policy implications, as mergers in transport sector infrastructures are not very common, particularly between different sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transportation systems are complex sociotechnical systems and this dual nature is reflected in the literature dealing with their planning, i.e. defining courses of action from both public and private points of view. On the one hand, the social sciences literature makes it clear that most decisions related to transportation are “wicked”, i.e. they cannot be tackled with traditional engineering approaches since they are poorly defined. On the other, transportation systems have a strong technical component affecting most of such decisions, as they have to (or should) comply with compelling technical and economic requirements. The literature on transport engineering and economics deals with transportation planning mostly as a rational process based on the formulation and comparison of alternative options. In this paper, we propose an approach to planning and designing transportation systems, at least in the more complex cases, meant to bridge the gap between social and technical points of view. The proposed approach is cross-disciplinary, as it integrates notions from cognitive sciences, organization and management sciences with transportation systems analysis. Transportation planning, both under public and private market-oriented viewpoints, is seen as a complex decision-making process where different actors (decision-makers, stakeholders, professionals) interact in different contexts and according to different “models” or approaches. After a brief discussion of the main elements of most planning processes and of the different decision making models, the paper proposes a decision-making model based on three parallel and intertwined processes: a cognitive rational approach to organizing the decision-making process, a five-level stakeholder engagement process, and a revised role of quantitative analyses and methods drawing on tools from engineering and economics, amongst other disciplines. We also present a real application of the proposed decision-making model to the case study of the Regional Metro System (RMS) project in Campania (southern Italy), where a complex decisional context with different stakeholders and multiple (often contrasting) interests was managed in the integrated framework for over a decade, resulting in the largest and most effective of such projects in Italy. Finally, the paper proposes new roles and new challenges for quantitative analyses and mathematical tools to support participated decision-making processes, extending their well-established functions for designing and assessing transportation solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By examining emerging travel trends and the resurgence of rail transport in the United States, this paper suggests that deploying high-speed rail (HSR) in the U.S. could help accelerate a transportation paradigm shift that is already underway, increase density, improve the service and sustainability of transportation, and accelerate economic activity. This shift is especially notable among young Americans who are driving less, buying fewer cars, and settling in urban areas where they can walk, bike, and use public transport. Meanwhile, baby boomers, though driving more than previous generations did at the same age, are joining this urbanizing trend and, as they grow older, seeking mobility alternatives to car dependence. Other trends, such as the transformation of society by mobile communication and digital technology, are also affecting change and forcing planners to re-think the current imbalance of the U.S. transport system. Using the success revealed by passenger rail services in the Northeast Corridor, this paper examines how high-speed rail and its station hubs could enhance urbanization and help to rebalance the three main passenger modes—road, air, and rail—so that each flourishes within its most sustainable niche. In these ways, the benefits of HSR extend beyond rail service itself to include this mode's ability to reinvent the transportation system in ways that better serve the needs of a changing society while urgently addressing livability and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban transport policies are characterized by a wide range of impacts, and trade-offs and conflicts among these impacts. The task of integrating and reconciling these impacts poses challenges, because they are incommensurable, and they affect different groups differentially. Further, impacts such as those related to social equity are hard to define and measure. In this paper we address two inter-related questions: How is social equity conceptualized, operationalized, and prioritized relative to environmental and other objectives; and how might social equity be more effectively integrated in urban transportation plans in North America? We critically analyze how social equity is incorporated into transportation plans in 18 large North American metropolitan areas, in terms of the quality of the related objectives, how meaningfully their achievement is assessed through the choice of performance measures or indicators, and their prioritization relative to other objectives. We observe that social equity goals and objectives are in many cases not translated into clearly specified objectives, and appropriate measures for assessing their achievement in a meaningful, disaggregated manner are often lacking. At the same time, there are good examples of social equity objectives and measures in several plans. In general, there is a stronger focus on the local environment (and congestion reduction) than on social equity in the plans. We end the paper with a discussion related to considerations for generating objectives and measures for better integrating social equity into urban transportation plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a qualitative study of two focus group discussions on Singapore's state of current and future urban mobility. The findings of this study, which applied a grounded theory approach of analysis, led to the development of a theoretical framework that displays the dynamic interrelationships between individuals' external and internal influences, and their roles in shaping individuals' travel mode behaviors and future mobility expectations. This framework also shows the complex process by which individuals evoke value negotiations and adjustments before arriving at their desirable choice of travel mode. Coping mechanisms or strategies are also innovated by commuters when the available mobility services are not perceived to meet their value expectations and needs for different commuting purposes. The variables constituting the external and internal influences of our theoretical model remind us that a “typical” transport user should be ideally considered and defined in light of some fundamental parameters. The findings of this study are expected to benefit policymakers in identifying and navigating potential barriers and drivers of change that could support the formulation of future transport policies and the adoption of transport technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interjurisdictional infrastructure planning is a complex affair due to the multiplicity of actors representing the jurisdictions, sometimes at several institutional levels. Their priorities are likely to conflict, as the ratio between costs and benefits of infrastructure differs according to place and to scale. Yet, for evaluating strategic decisions, policy makers typically use methods that assess impacts from a single-actor viewpoint, providing little insight in the political feasibility and desirability of projects that cross institutional borders. This paper presents a novel evaluation and group decision-making framework: Competence-based Multi Criteria Analysis (COMCA). It provides a structure for applying Multi Criteria Decision Analysis-based methods in a multi-actor, multi-level context. The framework can be used to evaluate the desirability of project alternatives for each of the actors, whose support, individually or as a group, is deemed necessary. Doing so, COMCA helps mapping local and global interests, providing valuable insight and input into the interjurisdictional decision-making and negotiation process. The article describes how COMCA was applied in a study with the aim to assess solutions for the main bottleneck of the Belgian railway network. It was found that, in terms of desirability among stakeholders, certain little-studied alternatives potentially surpass the alternatives which for many years were regarded as the most plausible options by the key players. Based on experiences during the study, the article discusses various parameters for finding the equilibrium between methodical precision and applicability in a real-world decision-making context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban public transportation infrastructure is a basic and necessary condition which ensures urban daily operation. The economic, social and environmental benefits of urban public transportation infrastructure are the positive impacts on urban economy, society and environment generated by the use of it respectively. Promoting their coordinated development is helpful to raise the level of urban public transportation infrastructure benefit. This paper evaluates the coordinated development of these three benefits taking four Chinese autonomous municipalities as examples. These four cities have large-scale urban public transportation infrastructure but its basic function has not been fully played. Whether these three benefits of urban public transportation infrastructure have been developed in harmony or not was unclear. We analyzed the coordinated development among three benefits by constructing coupling coordination degree model and studied the impacts of three benefits on their coordinated development level using panel regression model. The result showed that the coordinated development levels of three benefits of urban public transportation infrastructure were lower in these four cities and the impact of economic benefit on their coordinated development level was largest and social benefit insignificant. It was highly related with the development strategies and construction levels of urban public transportation infrastructure in these four cities. Three policy implications were put forward to the improvement of coordinated development level of three benefits of urban public transportation infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ageing of the population in many countries suggests that transport systems will have to be adapted to the needs of an increasing number of persons experiencing travel-related impairments. This development underscores the importance of a more fundamental challenge for transport planning: providing all persons with accessibility to key destinations, irrespective of the features of a person's body. The challenge is to move beyond the notion of universally accessible transport systems towards an inclusive transport system. Where the former focuses on adapting existing transport systems to the needs of persons with the widest possible range of abilities, the latter refers to the goal to provide all persons with access to a range of key destinations . This challenge requires not only the adaption of existing transport systems, but also the extension of those systems to provide travel-impaired persons and others with access to destinations. The aim of the paper is to develop a basic framework that can be helpful to set priorities towards the development of such an inclusive transport system. The framework distinguishes two principles for priority setting, one derived from the principle of welfare maximization and one conceptualizing the notion of hardship. Based on these two principles of priority setting, three different categories of measures to enhance accessibility for persons experiencing travel-related impairments are distinguished: (1) measures that live up to the principle of efficiency or welfare maximization; (2) measures that reduce transport-related hardship through adaptation or extension of the mainstream transport system; and (3) measures that reduce transport-related hardship through dedicated services for persons with travel impairments. The proposed framework requires changes in the practice of cost-benefit analysis, as well as a clear delineation of a hardship threshold. The latter is considered essential to make the transport problems experienced by persons with travel impairments visible to the public eye. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-speed rail (HSR) was originally conceived to connect large metropolitan areas in competition with air transport and suitable for distances between 400 km and 600 km. Since the opening of the first HSR, several studies have been undertaken to evaluate the increased accessibility HSR provides. The accessibility indicators used in these assessments consider the characteristics of the new transport system (speed, layout, stops, etc.) that are fundamentally related to the infrastructure itself. However, many studies on HSR have also highlighted the importance of providing services (timetables, frequencies, and fares). A high-performance infrastructure such as HSR may not reach its full potential in terms of accessibility and reducing travel times unless adequate services are provided. Considering this service approach, the paper presents a comparative accessibility analysis of the Spanish high-speed rail network based on two indicators: one focused on the potential connectivity between stations (location-based measure) and the other based on actual HSR services (schedule-based measure). This latter calculation has been established taking into account the available time at the destination and the associated travel costs. The use of this measure to assess the accessibility of the Spanish HSR network provides a new perspective on the real usefulness of this infrastructure. Comparing these two measures helps us evaluate the extent to which the services provided in each city allow the HSR network to reach its full potential accessibility. The comparison also highlights many dissimilarities among cities. This method provides a useful tool for transport planning and improving city design strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Information flow plays a central role in the development of transport policy, transport planning and the effective operation of the transport system. The recent upsurge in web enabled and pervasive technologies offer the opportunity of a new route for dynamic information flow that captures the views, needs and experiences of the travelling public in a timely and direct fashion through social media text posts. To date there is little published research, however, on how to realize this opportunity for the sector by capturing and analysing the text data. This paper provides an overview of the different categories of social media, the characteristics of its content and how these characteristics are reflected in transport-related posts. The research described in this paper includes a formulation of the goals for harvesting transport-related information from social media, the hypotheses to be tested to demonstrate that such information can provide valuable input to transport policy development or delivery and the challenges this involves. A hierarchical approach for categorizing transport-related information harvested from social media is presented. An explanatory study was designed, based on the understanding of the nature of social media content, the goals in harvesting it for transport planning and management purposes and existing text mining techniques. An exploratory case study is used to illustrate the process based on Twitter posts associated with particular UK sporting fixtures (i.e. football matches). The results demonstrate both the volume and pertinence of the information obtained. Whilst text-mining techniques have been applied in a number of other sectors (notably entertainment, business and the political arena), the use of information in the transport sector has some unique features that stem from both day-to-day operational practices and the longer term decision making processes surrounding the transport system – hence the significance and novelty of the results reported here. Many challenges in refining the methodology and techniques remain for future research, however the outcomes presented here are of relevance to a wide range of stakeholders in the transport and text mining fields. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Thirty years ago, Adams (1981) depicted a future UK where everyone was a millionaire lorry driver, simply by extrapolating from contemporary official transport growth assumptions. These assumptions underpinned the ‘predict and provide’ approach which then characterised transport planning. Twenty years later, the New Deal for Transport White Paper (1998) abandoned ‘predict and provide’ as unsustainable. This paper argues that the same growth assumptions that Adams took to their logical (absurd) conclusion have re-emerged to define both transport and the drivers of transport demand. While non-aviation transport is supposed to be carbon-neutral by 2050, the implied reductions in emissions rely on an absolute decoupling of transport demand and its drivers for which there is no evidence in current planning. Targets rely on optimistic, narrowly framed technology forecasts and behaviour change assumptions which appear highly unlikely in the present socio-political climate. Moreover, such is the cost of mitigating these tensions between economic growth and other concerns, it is argued that the targeted outcomes of current policy are as undesirable as they are unlikely. The paper concludes by calling for a transport policy which considers mobility in an integrated, holistic fashion, rather than merely as a dimension of economic growth. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Transport planning practice is experiencing rapid transitions. This shifting professional environment is prompting lively and sometimes bitter debates about how transportation models should be used. While these models and their outputs play an increasingly more important function in transport-related decision-making processes, growing concerns emerge about their limitations, assumptions, biases, and usability. This paper addresses the question of how different professionals involved in transportation planning perceive and experience these tensions. For that purpose, we developed an online survey which was completed by 229 European transport planning practitioners, primarily working in the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. Our findings support the following key conclusions. First , and contrary to popular notions on the matter, practitioners are relatively satisfied with the models they use. Second , most respondents are confident that they understand the assumptions and uncertainties associated with transport models, but that other important stakeholders do not. However, third , the larger the distance that respondents have to hands-on working experience with transportation models, the lower is their trust on model outputs. Respondents who are not directly involved in the operation of the models a) report more negative experiences associated with model use in decision-making processes and b) identify more usability barriers. The overall picture revealed a lack of trust amongst transport planning professionals, which is a problem needing to be addressed. We propose bringing models closer to those who use their outputs as a constructive solution to this trust deficit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transportation influences health primarily and most directly through traffic safety, air quality, physical activity, and accessibility. Despite the importance of all four components, only safety and air quality are typically considered during institutionalized transportation planning processes. This paper assesses how health impacts are considered in transportation planning by focusing on the long-range transportation plans that US metropolitan planning organizations develop. We analyzed the content of current plans from 25 large regions, reviewing how policy guidance statements and supporting performance measures addressed health. Goals and objectives exhibited an incomplete perspective of transportation's effects on health, focusing on safety, accessibility, and air quality, neglecting physical activity. Regional policies reflected national goals and planning requirements, which are rarely framed from a health perspective. Performance measures generally followed policy guidance, although measures of health and physical activity were lacking. Increased attention to the development of health-related performance measures and the data and analysis tools to support them is needed. By assessing the state of the practice and discussing potential approaches, this review informs a stronger and more comprehensive consideration of health within the institutionalized structure of US metropolitan transportation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defining Car Dependency (CD) as a lack of travel choices to daily destinations, this paper explores how possible changes in the spatial context of a post-growth, mid-sized urban region can affect the conditions for CD. In the most rural parts of the region distances to schools and shops will exceed walking and biking distances. Distances to work will increase on average. With the bicycle and e-bicycle fewer jobs will be accessible, although the e-bicycle shows greater reach than public transport. Despite the population and job decline, more jobs will be accessible by car, as a result of current investments in road infrastructure. This is enhanced by the ongoing development of economic centers along the highways, resulting in a growing mismatch between the rail system and the spatial economic structure of the region. We developed policy scenarios to explore spatial conditions for reducing car-dependence within the region. Intensifying land uses along the axes of public transport has a limited effect in a shrinking region. Introducing direct and fast public transport connections to the existing economic centers however does have effect. We tested two transport policy scenarios, one based on improving Inter City (IC) rail services on the existing rail network and one based on creating Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) services on the existing highways. The IC- scenario makes more jobs accessible outside the current daily urban system, while the BRT- scenario intensifies relations within the region. With regards to CD ‘three worlds’ seem to be emerging in this medium-sized, ‘post growth’ region. Rural areas (10–15% of the population in 2030) are increasingly becoming completely car dependent, suburban areas (65 –75% of the population) are offering travel choices to daily amenities, but increasingly becoming more car dependent in relation to jobs, and central urban areas (15–20% of the population) are providing travel choices to amenities as well as jobs, but only under the condition of improving the regional public transport system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In transportation planning, solutions designed to meet objectives of equity and social inclusion have to be achieved. From this standpoint, most of Network Design Problem (NDP) models aim at identifying the optimal layout of transportation networks by deterministic bi-level problems formulation to reflect the different goals of at least two decision makers (the network users and the planner). Considering the societal function of transport systems, the NDP, even at operational level, should be addressed also to the research of solutions in which the outcomes of the design (costs and/or benefits) are distributed as much as possible among the potential users or classes of users. Traditional approaches often neglect equity goals that, conversely, should play an important role or define some flows rebalancing problem. In this paper an Equity Based NDP is proposed, where the optimal layout of a road network is determined by minimizing the total system cost under flexible constraints, (jointly with rigid thresholds) by solving a single programming problem. It considers both horizontal and vertical equity criteria in the form of an equity constraint specified for uncertain variables or approximate reasoning environment: this results in a multi-objective fuzzy programming model that aims at maximizing user satisfaction according to all constraints, while taking into account the route choice behaviour of network users. A sensitivity analysis has been performed on a test network, and a comparison with a literature equity based model has been carried out; then, the proposed method has been applied to a real sized network, where an application of equity network design optimization is presented and the results discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a public transportation mode, rail transit systems are one of the most preferred modes to avoid traffic congestion, especially during the rush hours. This paper proposes a service quality evaluation outline to measure rail transit lines’ performances via passenger satisfaction surveys. The proposed method combines statistical analysis, fuzzy trapezoidal numbers and TOPSIS to evaluate service quality levels for multi periods. In total 17,769 surveys that are conducted in Istanbul in 2012, 2013, and 2014 are considered to determine the factors need to be improved. We provide recommendations to enhance the operation for specific lines and guidelines for future investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the direct, indirect and total impacts of all transport modes on industrial employment in Spain from 1995 to 2008. Through spatial econometric methods, this study finds that only ports are able to generate positive total effects, and that the increase in industrial employment that a region obtains from having more kilometers of motorways results in less industrial employment in other nearby regions. In contrast, airports and railways do not have a relevant impact on industrial employment. Overall, the level of employment in a country's manufacturing activities is related with those transport infrastructures that improve its international connectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on bikesharing has largely focused on systems operating in large cities. Based on the Swiss experience, this paper explores the challenges that small cities (<100,000 inhabitants) face in implementing such systems. It presents four types of evidence: (1) historical evolution of bikesharing in Switzerland; (2) current configuration of the systems; (3) usage rate; and (4) strategies and policy choices. Results show that the challenges in terms of usage rate and economic sustainability of bikesharing systems in small cities are considerable. The density of bikesharing networks, the existing modal share for each city, and possible target groups are elements that must be taken into account to improve the performance of bikesharing systems. The Swiss experience also suggests that the ability to develop partnerships as well as communication and accountability play a critical role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activity-based travel demand models can be useful tools for understanding the individual level equity impacts of transportation plans, because of their ability to generate disaggregate transportation measures. However, these capabilities have yet to be fully explored in public practice. In this paper we first discuss a general framework for performing transportation equity analysis using activity-based travel demand models, distributional comparisons, and incorporating equity standards. In addition, we demonstrate the advantages of distributional comparisons, relative to average measures. This demonstration uses the 2000 Bay Area Travel Survey and (activity-based) mode choice model. The findings show that distributional comparisons are capable of clearly revealing the winners and losers that result from transportation improvements, in comparison with average measures. The use of these results will likely result in different conclusions on transportation investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we challenge the so-called orthodox sustainable transport vision, by confronting it with two possibly troublesome issues; (1) the urge for growth, and (2) the question of social justice. On the basis of seven cases from Belgium, a country with a strong commuting culture and a traditional tendency towards multimodality, we show that the conversion of a sustainability discourse into policy actions often leads to realisations which are essentially to be labelled as non-sustainable. On the one hand we discuss a number of cases where additional travel is unintentionally stimulated, with an unforeseen contribution to global warming as a result. On the other hand, we refer to cases where subsidies for sustainable transport modes seem to be geared towards wealthier groups, while poorer groups are exposed to additional expenses. The cases cover different steps of the policy process: (1) problem definition and selection of indicators, (2) the choice of a particular solution, and (3) the design of the chosen plan or programme, and illustrate the mechanisms underlying goal-displacements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessibility concepts are increasingly acknowledged as fundamental to understand cities and urban regions. Accordingly, accessibility instruments have been recognised as valuable support tools for land-use and transport planning. However, despite the relatively large number of instruments available in the literature, they are not widely used in planning practice. This paper aims to explore why accessibility instruments are not widely used in planning practice. To this end we focus our research on perceived user-friendliness and usefulness of accessibility instruments. First, we surveyed a number of instrument developers, providing an overview on the characteristics of accessibility instruments available and on developers’ perceptions of their user-friendliness in planning practice. Second, we brought together developers and planning practitioners in a number of local workshops across Europe and Australia, where participants were asked to use insights provided by accessibility instruments for the development of planning strategies. We found that most practitioners are convinced of the usefulness of accessibility instruments in planning practice, as they generate new and relevant insights for planners. Findings suggest that not only user-friendliness problems, but mainly organizational barriers and lack of institutionalization of accessibility instruments, are the main causes of the implementation gap. Thus user-friendliness improvement may provide limited contributions to the successful implementation of accessibility concepts in planning practice. In fact, there seems to be more to gain from active and continued engagement of instrument developers with planning practitioners and from the institutionalization of accessibility planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The port regionalisation concept extended earlier spatial models of port development with a focus on institutional relationships governing the complexity of inland connections. The concept accounts for the fact that modern ports operate in an increasingly complex and sophisticated transport and logistics environment, embedded within multi-scalar planning regimes. This paper addresses the role of intermodal transport in port regionalisation by reviewing the literature on the three core aspects of the concept: intermodal terminals, inland logistics and collective action problems. Results reveal that inland terminals developed by landside actors often experience a conflict of strategy with port actors (either port authorities or terminal operators). Port actors have difficulty acting beyond the port perimeter but some port terminal operators have begun to demonstrate successful investments in inland terminals in order to manage their container throughput more strategically. Inland logistics markets tend to be centralised and focus heavily on domestic flows, thus the efficiency of intermodal freight services is challenged by the need to combine port and domestic movements which have different product, route and equipment characteristics. Collective action is an arena where port actors can be influential due to the role of informal networking in managing freight corridors; however, institutional constraints limit their ability to act directly. The findings in this paper elucidate challenges to the ability of ports to control or capture hinterlands through the strategies of integration that the port regionalisation concept proposes. The paper concludes by proposing a research agenda developing from recent institutional adaptations of port actors as a result of these challenges. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Policy transfer is the process of applying a policy, or knowledge that informs a policy, from one setting to another. It is considered to be an effective way for cities, municipalities or countries to learn from one another, and is documented by many (e.g. Evans, 2009; Common, 2001) as a process that is being used with increasing frequency. The European Union (EU) provides the ideal platform for knowledge exchange between member states and its various funding streams for multi-national projects, especially so. To date there has been little research into the effectiveness of EU-funded projects for facilitating such policy transfer and in particular which particular processes within them were most effective at delivering the transfer. This paper examines five different processes used within the EU-funded Active Access project, which aimed to encourage cycling and especially walking for short trips, walking audits, stakeholder exchange workshop, shadowing, analysis of best practice and overall participation within the project. The processes are analysed under a framework for policy transfer (Dolowitz and Marsh, 2000). Quantitative and qualitative analysis of questionnaires completed by the project partners focuses on how effective those involved perceived the different methods of transfer. The results presented in the paper illustrate that some methods of policy transfer are perceived to be more effective in delivering the same message than others. Insight is also given with regard to the cultural barriers that exist for such knowledge transfer. The implications for the design of future multi-national projects in order to maximise effective policy transfer, is discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents a framework for examining the ways in which technical aspects of the regional transportation planning process are changing in response to a broadening of goals and strategies, driven in part by an increased emphasis on public involvement. As an illustration of this framework, the long-range plans of four Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in the US are analyzed with respect to goals, performance measures, and use of forecasts. These examples suggest that changes in the technical aspects of the process are lagging changes in planning goals. As a result, plans may implicitly emphasize congestion relief even if they put forth a much broader range of goals. This paper provides a basis for further analysis of the current evolution of transportation planning in the US. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Regional transportation planning agencies seek to achieve multiple objectives simultaneously including consensus on key issues, compliance with relevant laws and regulations, and improvements in the congestion, air quality, and safety performance of the transportation system. Some performance areas lend themselves well to operationalization while others do not. One area that has received comparatively little study is the assessment of a plan's impacts on environmental justice and social equity. Although research on regional planning usually emphasizes larger metropolitan areas and agencies, these issues are especially relevant in smaller regions where planners lack the capacity for innovation and careful analysis. Further, the transit services on which disadvantaged populations depend are often lacking or non-existent in less-populated regions. Understanding how planners in these locations undertake social equity-related analyses and providing suggestions for improvement is thus an important endeavor. While prior work has assessed whether, and to what extent, equity objectives are included in plans, there are few detailed investigations of the key analytical choices that shape equity outcomes. This paper fills this important research gap, providing such an analysis of existing practice in a largely rural region in California, the San Joaquin Valley, as well as recommendations for future analyses aimed at improving the consistency between equity analyses and the real-world impacts of transportation plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practitioners and transport planners should be aware of the different policies in transport planning and laws and regulations in relation to them. Nevertheless, research has shown that implementation of transport policies, whatever their focus may be, does not always result in them being employed in the daily transport planning. In Sweden, accessibility policy has a long tradition but gained increased interest in 1999 with an action plan which aimed at ensuring participation of all people with all kinds of disabilities. The overall aim of this study was to investigate how accessibility policy for older people and people with disabilities in the outdoor environment has been implemented in the daily transport planning and how it has progressed/regressed over time. The results in this paper are based on longitudinal data from questionnaire sent out to all municipalities in Sweden in 2004 and 2014. The results indicate that it has become more established to consider accessibility in transportation planning. However, the results also show that there are still some considerable differences between the municipalities regarding their level of implemented accessibility policy. Also, the municipal transport planners seem to be less aware of the legislative directives and recommendations in 2014 than in 2004. Overall, there is need for improved knowledge and awareness of accessibility issues among all actors involved in municipal planning and a need for a more effective and systematic approach when planning and designing outdoor environments for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study on the criteria priorities on the decisions of transportation infrastructure investments in Brazil, based on the application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process – AHP. We consider the definition of a set of seven criteria and respective parameters, structured in four groups: logistics/transportation, economic/financial, social and environmental. Representatives of four different sectors, which contribute to the decision making on transportation in Brazil, were used to find their different points of view about the criteria. With the main aim of prioritization of the criteria, it was considered one of the national policies of Brazilian transportation goals, i.e. , the modal split balance of interurban cargo transportation. Thus, each expert provided a pair comparisons of the criteria and pondered their relative importance, attributing weights based upon the scale used by AHP. These comparisons do not consider which projects should be prioritized, but only the importance of each criterion in relation to the others. As a main result, the criterion “reduction of transportation costs” was presented in several scenarios as the most relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The engineering view of a measurable, supply-independent, demand for parking that can be expressed by “minimum parking codes” has been generally rejected during the last two decades and is gradually being replaced by “maximum provision” codes, limited parking development, and demand pricing. To assess new planning practices one has to estimate the drivers' reaction to proposed spatial–temporal parking limitations. The paper applies a high-resolution spatially explicit agent-based model termed “PARKAGENT” as a tool for this assessment. The model is used for evaluation of parking demand in the Diamond Exchange area in Ramat Gan, a city in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, for estimating the effectiveness of planned parking facilities for different development scenarios in the area and assessing electronic signage system that directs drivers to vacant parking lots. The results strongly indicate the advantages of agent-based modeling over the current dominant engineering approach and show the potential benefits of using an intelligent parking guidance system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate whether and how multiple-criteria decision analysis, based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach, may support the participatory process of the public in the whole transportation planning process, especially in strategic planning and at the initial stages during which planning options are drawn up and the public are rarely involved. The AHP makes it possible to consider the multiple objectives of decision makers and allows public engagement to be deliberative, participatory, dynamic and flexible, which is independent of planning options. The method was specified and calibrated starting from a specific stated preferences survey, and its parameters were calibrated with respect to two scenarios: without any transport options and with real transport options. Different criteria (accessibility, travel safety, comfort, environment, landscape), subcriteria and corresponding indicators (qualitative, quantitative and dichotomous) were considered, and reciprocal weights were calibrated. Finally, a real planning scenario was implemented. Calibration results gave interesting insights into the public desires and expectations, made it possible to rank the different chosen criteria and sub-criteria and to understand the biases between preferences stated with or without transport options. The method can be easily updated and can be easily transferred to any case study. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Three decades ago, ports were generally regarded as homogeneous entities that competed with each other at different operational levels. In the course of the 1990s, however, the “port product” increasingly came to be seen as a set of interlinking functions, with the port as such serving as one of the links in the overall logistic chain. The most recent literature has revisited the concept of port competition to take due account of the complex and heterogeneous nature of ports today. Moreover, the focus is no longer exclusively on competition between ports, but increasingly also on internal competition, between individual production companies and service providers operating within or making use of the same port setting. Starting from the above framework, this paper focuses on the exogenous and endogenous variables that can affect port competition, which ultimately provides insight into potential strategies for improving the competitiveness of Italy''s seaports. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: While the definition of a sustainable transportation system is varied, there is emerging consensus that transportation system sustainability should capture attributes of system effectiveness and system impacts on economic development, environmental integrity, and social quality of life. Sustainability assessment can be incorporated at the planning level in order to influence decision making, and support policies that affect regional sustainability. This paper reviews methodologies that can be applied in sustainability assessment in transportation planning in order to shed light on the procedures being used to incorporate sustainability more effectively in the planning process. Using data from the Atlanta Metropolitan Region, the study identifies performance measures based on sustainability issues and regional goals and evaluates proposed transportation and land use alternatives. The study evaluates and discusses several performance measures and aggregates them into indexes representing four parameters of sustainability: system effectiveness, environmental, economic, and social impacts, to enable visualization and assessment of tradeoffs and dominance for the competing alternatives. This study is potentially useful to agencies interested in understanding the range of tools being used for sustainability assessment, expanding or refining their performance measures to capture sustainability in transportation planning, and using them in evaluating tradeoffs among competing alternatives as well as in identifying dominant alternatives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper describes the development of an integrated appraisal procedure for new local railway stations. The procedure is not intended to act as a ‘solid state’ set of guidelines, but instead to provide a framework containing current best practice, within which individual elements can be updated and enhanced as new evidence becomes available without affecting the rest of the methodology. The framework includes a number of different elements, which are brought together in an appraisal spreadsheet but which can be altered without affecting other sections of the procedure. First, the best locations for new stations within the study area are chosen, with potential sites selected, catchments defined, infrastructure capacity assessed and potential service patterns planned. Usage at the potential stations is predicted using trip end and flow level demand models, and the extent of abstraction from neighbouring stations is considered. The benefits and costs of constructing the stations are then estimated, including direct financial gains and losses as well as wider economic impacts and social costs and benefits. Finally, these are brought together to calculate financial and social net present values and benefit–cost ratios, with break-even demand levels for new stations also provided. The framework provides a consistent means of estimating the costs and benefits of the large number of schemes for new local railway stations in the UK, and use of a standardised methodology allows those schemes with the best case for construction to be prioritised. Since rail privatisation in the mid-1990s the costs of new stations have escalated dramatically, meaning that stations have to demonstrate much greater revenue-earning potential than was previously the case to justify construction. By providing more accurate forecasts and thus reducing uncertainty over scheme costs and benefits, this appraisal procedure can help to ensure that the best return is obtained on the limited investment funds which are available. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Attracting people to use the public bus has never been easy. Private vehicles have typically offered better alternatives than the public bus at the cost of environmental problems. The challenge is even greater in rural areas and small cities where factors such as diverse activity locations, abundant parking lots, and non-existence of traffic jams have justified the use of private car as a commuting mode. This paper tries to address this challenge by analyzing the prospect of increasing patronage for a local public bus in Hidaka City, a small city in Japan. A questionnaire survey collected from three main residential complexes in the city was used in the analysis. The study mainly focused on work commuting trips and the respondents were categorized into train commuters and non-train commuters for the analysis. The results showed that up to a 14% increase can be expected from the train commuters with the majority share coming from motorized modes. Strategic implementation in improving the services was not as straight forward as expected. However, the findings indicated that the right direction had been pursued. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Several studies have indicated that option generation – the development of a range of strategic policy options to tackle identified transport problems – is the weakest link in current transport planning practice. Local authorities all too often limit themselves to pre-conceived solutions, focus on supply-side rather than demand-side polices, and are unaware of the potential of novel solutions. This is even more the case for the development of packages of policy instruments, in which each can be expected to support the others by making it more effective or easier to implement. A decision-support tool, based on the transport policy knowledgebase, KonSULT, which generates possible policy packages, is described. The tool can operate in one of two ways: by taking a single user-specified policy instrument, and identifying the other policy instruments in KonSULT which might best support it; or by taking a user-specified shortlist of up to ten policy instruments, and identifying those combinations which might perform best in the specified context. In both cases the user specifies whether the emphasis should be on synergy or on the resolution of barriers. The best performing instruments are highlighted through a scoring system. The synergy scores were initially based on professional judgment. Subsequently, a sketch planning model was used to provide improved estimates for them. The resolution of barriers scores continue to be based on professional judgement. The paper describes the development of the tool and discusses the implications of the subsequent model-based analysis. It outlines future developments and reviews the role of such tools in policy formulation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Congestion charges were introduced in Stockholm in 2006, first as a trial followed by a referendum, then permanently from 2007. This paper discusses what conclusions can be drawn from the first five years of operation, until mid-2011. We show that the traffic reduction caused by the charges has increased slightly over time, once external factors are controlled for. Alternative fuel vehicles were exempt from the charges through 2008, and we show that this substantially increased the sales of such vehicles. We discuss public and political acceptability, synthesising recent research and Swedish experience. We conclude that objective and subjective effects on the traffic system, as well as general environmental and political attitudes, formed the basis of the strong public support, while institutional reforms and resolution of power issues were necessary to gain political support. Finally, we briefly discuss implications for the transport planning process in general. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines parents'' responses to key factors associated with mode choices for school trips. The research was conducted with parents of elementary school students in Denver Colorado as part of a larger investigation of school travel. School-based active travel programs aim to encourage students to walk or bike to school more frequently. To that end, planning research has identified an array of factors associated with parents'' decisions to drive children to school. Many findings are interpreted as ‘barriers’ to active travel, implying that parents have similar objectives with respect to travel mode choices and that parents respond similarly and consistently to external conditions. While the conclusions are appropriate in forecasting demand and mode share with large populations, they are generally too coarse for programs that aim to influence travel behavior with individuals and small groups. This research uses content analysis of interview transcripts to examine the contexts of factors associated with parents'' mode choices for trips to and from elementary school. Short, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 65 parents from 12 Denver Public Elementary Schools that had been selected to receive 2007–08 Safe Routes to School non-infrastructure grants. Transcripts were analyzed using Nvivo 8.0 to find out how parents respond to selected factors that are often described in planning literature as ‘barriers’ to active travel. Two contrasting themes emerged from the analysis: barrier elimination and barrier negotiation. Regular active travel appears to diminish parents'' perceptions of barriers so that negotiation becomes second nature. Findings from this study suggest that intervention should build capacity and inclination in order to increase rates of active travel. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper focuses on the research activities, findings and planned products of one of the UK EPSRC-funded DISTILLATE (Design and Implementation Support Tools for Integrated Local Land use, Transport and the Environment) projects on the funding of transport and land-use schemes. Research activities have included a literature review, dialogue with local authority case studies and a funding workshop. The research identified and explored a range of barriers to funding, including lack of revenue funding, difficulties in obtaining funding for ‘soft’ schemes, the formation of partnerships and timing-related issues. The research also revealed that the funding system is failing to meet the needs of the current transport policy focus on managing travel demand, rather than being a supply-led process. The key project outputs are described, which include a ‘funding toolkit’ for local authorities, and guidance for funding bodies regarding the barriers faced. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]