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The interurban network of criminal collaboration in Canada is described, and possible explanations for its structure are explored. The data include all police-reported co-offences in the 32 major cities of Canada during 2006–09. Component analysis and graph drawings in network space and in geospace elucidate the structure of the network. Quadratic assignment procedure multiple regressions, repeated separately on the networks of instrumental and noninstrumental co-offences, test hypotheses about possible determinants of the network structure. The cities form one connected component, containing two clusters connected by a link between Toronto and Vancouver. One cluster, centred on the triad of Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa, comprises the cities in Ontario and Quebec, with weak links to cities in the Atlantic provinces. The other cluster, centred on Vancouver, comprises the cities in the four western provinces. The structure is strongly correlated with the residential mobility of the general population, which in turn is strongly correlated with intercity distances. The correlation with mobility is less strong for instrumental than for noninstrumental crimes. The structure of this co-offending network can be explained by criminals' routine activities, namely ordinary residential mobility, but the alternative explanation of purposive interurban criminal collaboration is more plausible for instrumental crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interurban commercial bus drivers are confronted with inherent risk of over speeding, road curvature, road geometry, and weather condition predisposing them to Road Traffic Crashes (RTCs). Lived experiences of inter-urban commercial bus drivers involved in RTCs in Ghana remains relatively underreported. This relates to their experiences and opinions on the causes of RTCs and the post-experiences as survivors. This paper is an exploratory qualitative study involving face-to-face in-depth interviews with 15 interurban commercial bus drivers who survived RTCs and still drive. The sample was a mix of purposive and snowball sampling techniques at the terminals/stations of interurban commercial bus drivers in Cape Coast, the Capital city of Central Region. The analysis revealed environmental factors (such as weather condition, road surface, road curvature) accounted for the RTCs. Survivors received poor pre-hospital trauma care and no welfare package. Measures to RTCs could include road/transport infrastructure improvements and survivors are to be provided with social welfare package.

Methods for the road network design problem, typically, are based on optimization of the network efficiency measures (e.g. network-wide travel time) under a predefined budget. In these approaches, equity issues are not taken into account and, consequently, most of the road improvements are planned next to large cities. Thus, disparities between large and small cities increase, which does not conform to sustainable development objectives. In this paper, to overcome concerns associated with traditional methods, equity is incorporated into the interurban road network design problem. To this end, accessibility concepts are employed. However, unlike previous studies, instead of maximizing the total accessibility, a new definition is proposed for inaccessibility, and total inaccessibility is minimized throughout the network. Using this new definition not only is more compatible with the equity issue, but also helps to eliminate the nonlinearity of the problem. Average travel time to neighboring opportunities is utilized to propose this definition for inaccessibility, which captures the reality more effectively. With the aim of this definition, equity is incorporated into the road network design problem implicitly. This is another improvement over previous methods, where a new term in the objective function or a new constraint is added to include the equity. The proposed model is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem, where the objective is to minimize the aggregate inaccessibility over all the population centers in the network. To illustrate the application of the model, the Northwest region of the United States is used as the case study. The respective exact solution of the example is found using a commercial solver (CPLEX). This new solution is also compared with the solutions from the traditional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research concerning clients of commercial sex workers (CSWs) relies upon CSW reports of client characteristics and behavior. We describe correlates of ever purchasing sex among 3,829 men from three cities: São Paulo, Brazil; Cuernavaca, Mexico; and Tampa, USA. A computer-assisted self-interview collected data on demographics and sexual behavior. There were significant site differences—26.5 % paid for sex in São Paulo, 10.4 % in Cuernavaca, and 4.9 % in Tampa. In all cities, men who had sex with men and women (versus sex with women only) were more likely to have ever paid for sex. In São Paulo and Cuernavaca, CSW clients were older, had higher educational attainment, and were less likely to be married. In Tampa, older age was associated with being a CSW client but not education and marital status. In São Paulo and Cuernavaca, CSW clients had more partners than men who had never paid for sex. In São Paulo, CSW clients initiated vaginal sex at an earlier age, while in Cuernavaca they were more likely to self-report a sexually transmitted infection. CSW clients varied with respect to demographics across the three cities while the association between paying for sex and risky sexual behavior seems to be somewhat conserved. These findings suggest that interventions among CSW clients should focus on condom use with commercial and non-commercial partners as these men may be at increased risk for transmitting and acquiring sexually transmitted infections to and from their sex partners. Better understanding of client characteristics is needed for targeting interventions and creating culturally appropriate content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The study examines the perceptions and preferences of passengers on interurban rail and bus and compares the preferences of passengers on both these modes. This is carried out to identify where passengers feel changes are needed to both modes to improve services, and to contrast the services offered by bus and train in Ireland. The preferences and perceptions of passengers are collected using both stated preference and revealed preference techniques. The impacts that different types of stated preference questionnaire have on the responses of individuals can, therefore, be examined. The study also compares stated preference models with revealed preference models and looks at if these can be pooled to take advantage of the benefits offered by both stated preference and revealed preference models. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]