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Since many parents travel separately for escorting and commuting, certain hidden daily car trips may have been ignored in previous research regarding parental escort behaviors. By defining an escort-space model using the spatial relationships between home, the workplace, and school, this study focuses on the daily modal split among parental chauffeurs using data from Qujing, China, while focusing on the effects of different escort-space models: spatial aggregation, job-housing separation and school-housing separation. The descriptive statistics of parental chauffeurs’ travel mode choices under the influences of these three escort-space models are presented. The statistical results demonstrate that the modal splits of parental chauffeurs perform significantly differently under these three escort-space models. Furthermore, the determinants of the daily travel mode of parental chauffeurs, including escort-spaces and other selected variables, are investigated using a multinomial logit model. A model without the escort-space model is also presented for comparison. The results show that the model with the escort-space model has a more significant goodness-of-fit than the model without the escort-space model. Both the job-housing separation and school-housing separation of parental chauffeurs result in the increase of car trips, while the usage amount of car in daily journeys is higher than that in escort trips. Moreover, car ownership, bike ownership, household income, residential location, age, gender, income, and education level all significantly impact the daily travel mode choices of parental chauffeurs. These findings can help policymakers create suitable policies to reduce excessive car trips by parental chauffeurs.

The household is usually an essential element for activity-based travel decision-making of individuals. From the perspective of household context, activities are often allocated to individuals based on their household roles, thereby affecting individuals’ travel behavior. By defining the household role using spatial-temporal constraints which are associated with individual activities and household activities, this paper investigates the travel mode choice of individuals considering the effect of different household roles. The descriptive statistics of the household roles and their corresponding travel mode choice are presented using the data from Kunming, China. The statistical results show that the modal splits between females and males perform a significant difference in the same household roles. Furthermore, the travel mode choice of females and males are estimated separately using multinomial logistic regression model. The results show that those who face more space-time constraints associated with household tasks are less willing to travel by car. While with the increase of commuting constraints, household heads, especially female-heads, tend to use car to meet the travel demands of household activity. Besides, individuals’ age, education level, the number of cars and bikes in household also have a significant impact on travel mode choices of individuals.

Individuals have experienced various degrees of accessibility loss during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may consequently influence transport equity. However, conventional measurements of accessibility cannot capture individual experiences and perceptions of accessibility. Moreover, since many daily necessities and services can only be acquired online during the pandemic, the ease of using smartphone-based services play an essential role in people’s everyday lives. Therefore, this paper investigates the relationship between the ease of using smartphone-based services, perceived accessibility, and perceived transport equity during the pandemic. Based on 186 family interviews, a panel survey with 569 respondents was conducted monthly from February to October 2020 in Kunming, China, and a three-wave cross-lagged panel model was developed to understand the causal relationship between the three constructs. The results indicate that the ease of using smartphone-based services dominantly influence transport equity in the early phase of the pandemic, but its effect faded after the lifting of travel restrictions. Perceived accessibility to services appears a sound indicator for transport equity in the new normal, but perceived accessibility and transport equity are not strongly associated when staying at home is perceived as desirable. Moreover, we found that contemporary practices of smartphone-based new mobility services only favour those who already have convenient access to services and have further excluded and marginalised disadvantaged populations, which urgently require policy interventions.

China railway transportation is developing rapidly, the running speed of high-speed train is promoted. As the promoted speed, the running gear and gearbox of high-speed train produce more heat, causing hot axle easily. In view of the hot axle phenomenon of high-speed train during operating, in combination with the former failure condition of axle temperature monitoring system in terms of total composition, principle and failure condition during operating, analyzing the causes of system failure deeply, a new type of axle temperature monitoring system is designed. Through the test, it indicates that the system could monitor the axle temperature condition of high-speed operating train real-time and accurately, it plays an important role in ensuring the safe operation of high-speed train.

To encourage low-carbon travel, reduce car trips, and improve the urban traffic system, an understanding of travel mode choice for escorting children to and from school is important. Previous studies have focused mostly on walking and bicycling. However, the electric bicycle (e-bike—a mainstream escorting mode in China) rarely has been investigated. The factors that affect travel mode choice (walking, e-bike, or car) for escorting children to and from school are explored at the household level in a case study from Kunming, China. Intrahousehold interactions and parental space–time constraints are represented by the comparative working hours of the parents and space–time coordination in joint parent–child trips, respectively. A multinomial logit model was applied in mode analysis. The results reveal interesting phenomena in travel mode choices for escorting children to school. When the mother’s working hours are longer than the father’s, the travel mode choice for escorting a child to and from school is less likely to be walking or e-bike; in other words, a car is the preferred choice in mother-dominated households. The distance deviation between parents and children is a significant factor in choosing between a car or an e-bike. Children are more likely to be escorted by e-bikes as a result of distance deviations, and walking or e-bike is less likely to be chosen when the school is far from home. Results could be valuable for traffic demand management to reduce car use for trips to and from school. In addition, e-bike development should be considered seriously for the future development of China.

Egalitarian thought has a long tradition in Chinese history. Synthesized with the socialist ideology, it was practiced nationwide in the first decades of Communist China. Alongside the well-reported quality of life improvements that the recent economic liberalisation reforms have brought about, Chinese people are experiencing an increasingly serious polarization between the rich and the poor. Consequently, an egalitarian tendency has represented itself within contemporary policy and popular discourse. This paper aims to explore how egalitarian thought has influenced public awareness of social inequities by using the case of public attitudes towards the Beijing congestion charge, which is currently still at its planning stage. Nine focus groups, with a total of 73 participants, were undertaken with residents living in different areas of the city. Results show that the perceptions of social inequities are significantly different between low-income and high-income people. Due to egalitarian thinking, low-income people expect the privileges of the rich to be abolished, however, they do not pay much attention to a wider redistribution of wealth and other social resources. By contrast, richer people tend to deny to a wider population the privileges they themselves received, and, to some extent, they are reluctant to accept policy outcomes that may favour those who are in lower social positions. The resentment against the rich, as another by-product of egalitarianism, considerably exaggerates actual social inequalities, thereby intensifying the feelings of being unequally treated.

In order to explore the factors affecting users’ behaviors in a free-floating bike sharing (FFBS) system in China, a survey was conducted in Jiangsu province, China in 2017, and the travel characteristics of FFBS users were analyzed. A binary logistic model was applied to quantify the impact of various variables regarding residents’ usage preference based on 30401 valid questionnaires. The findings show that (1) FFBS was mainly used for short-distance travel in cities, especially for commuting and schooling, and the time period of travel in FFBS coincided with the rush-hour in urban areas; (2) a higher level of education, a higher daily transportation cost, the convenience of picking up and parking, and the contribution to users’ health could promote the usage of FFBS, while malfunctioning bicycles and limited regulations were major obstacles restricting the development of FFBS; (3) interestingly, people with high-incomes rather than those with low-incomes showed an inclination for FFBS owing to the charge mode. This research provides empirical evidence to facilitate the formulation of urban transportation policies and to improve the management of FFBS for the operators.