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Due to the growing population and demand, transportation planning has received special importance in the context of supply chain management. One of the major challenges in transportation planning is the traffic problem. This challenge affects the safety, environmental, and efficiency factors of transportation systems. Accordingly, in this study, the routes, which are important pillars of transportation planning, are examined from the perspective of sustainability. In this regard, a novel decision support system is developed, wherein at first, some decision-making methods including Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), entropy technique, Nash equilibrium point (NEP), and data envelopment analysis (DEA) are employed to analyze and determine unstable routes. Then, a bi-level leader-follower multi-objective optimization model is developed, based on the vehicle types, to evaluate the routes at different time intervals and identify the most efficient time intervals as a traffic pattern. Finally, the proposed models are implemented in a real case study based on the freeways in Tehran. According to the main finding, it is revealed that heavier and bulkier vehicles have a greater impact on road instability., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Background: Automated Vehicles (AVs) are central to the new mobility paradigm that promises to transform transportation systems and cities across the globe. To date, much of the research on AVs has focused on technological advancements with little emphasis on how this emerging technology will impact population-level health. This scoping study examines the potential health impacts of AVs based on the existing literature., Methods: Using Arksey and O'Malley's scoping protocol, we searched academic and 'grey' literature to anticipate the effects of AVs on human health., Results: Our search captured 43 information sources that discussed a least one of the five thematic areas related to health. The bulk of the evidence is related to road safety (n = 37), followed by a relatively equal distribution between social equity (n = 24), environment (n = 22), lifestyle (n = 20), and built environment (n = 18) themes. There is general agreement that AVs will improve road safety overall, thus reducing injuries and fatalities from human errors in operating motorized vehicles. However, the relationships with air quality, physical activity, and stress, among other health factors may be more complex. The broader health implications of AVs will be dependent on how the technology is adopted in various transportation systems. Regulatory action will be a significant determinant of how AVs could affect health, as well as how AVs influence social and environmental determinants of health., Conclusion: To support researchers and practitioners considering the health implications of AVs, we provide a conceptual map of the direct and indirect linkages between AV use and health outcomes. It is important that stakeholders, including public health agencies work to ensure that population health outcomes and equitable distribution of health impacts are priority considerations as regulators develop their response to AVs. We recommend that public health and transportation officials actively monitor trends in AV introduction and adoption, regulators focus on protecting human health and safety in AV implementation, and researchers work to expand the body of evidence surrounding AVs and population health.

Inadequate infrastructural networks can be detrimental to society if transport between locations becomes hindered or delayed, especially due to natural hazards which are difficult to control. Thus determining natural hazard susceptible areas and incorporating them in the initial planning process, may reduce infrastructural damages in the long run. The objective of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of expert judgments for assessing natural hazard susceptibility through a spatial multi-criteria analysis approach using hydrological, geological, and land use factors. To utilize spatial multi-criteria analysis for decision support, an analytic hierarchy process was adopted where expert judgments were evaluated individually and in an aggregated manner. The estimates of susceptible areas were then compared with the methods weighted linear combination using equal weights and factor interaction method. Results showed that inundation received the highest susceptibility. Using expert judgment showed to perform almost the same as equal weighting where the difference in susceptibility between the two for inundation was around 4%. The results also showed that downscaling could negatively affect the susceptibility assessment and be highly misleading. Susceptibility assessment through spatial multi-criteria analysis is useful for decision support in early road planning despite its limitation to the selection and use of decision rules and criteria. A natural hazard spatial multi-criteria analysis could be used to indicate areas where more investigations need to be undertaken from a natural hazard point of view, and to identify areas thought to have higher susceptibility along existing roads where mitigation measures could be targeted after in-situ investigations.

This research is intended to support the implementation of a program led by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) to support new transportation-related pilot projects in the region through 2026. Although pilot projects have become popular in transportation planning and other policy sectors, often to test new technologies or ideas before fully committing to them, agencies are struggling to turn their successful pilots into permanent programs. To further analyze the use of transportation pilots in the U.S., 15 interviews with practitioners were conducted and seven case studies of specific projects were analyzed. Findings revealed many shared experiences across agencies, despite their unique circumstances. Identifying long-term funding and adequate staff capacity were some of the most commonly cited challenges, but pilots can also come up against unexpected external barriers. Pilot-operating staff must be adaptable and willing to make significant adjustments or give up on a project when necessary. Also crucial are the method and scale of pilot evaluation, communication strategies with the public before and during the pilot, and partnerships with local organizations or universities. The recommendations provided for SCAG and other agencies are organized into five categories: long-term planning, goals and evaluation, partnerships, community involvement, and decision-making. This research contributes to a growing interest in the use of pilot projects for streamlining government processes and promoting risk-taking and innovation in public agencies.

This paper presents a comprehensive approach for planning for teams of heterogeneous robots with different capabilities and the transportation of resources. We use Capability Temporal Logic (CaTL), a formal language that helps express tasks involving robots with multiple capabilities with spatial, temporal, and logical constraints. We extend CaTL to also capture resource constraints, where resources can be divisible and indivisible, for instance, sand and bricks, respectively. Robots transport resources using various storage types, such as uniform (shared storage among resources) and compartmental (individual storage per resource). Robots' resource transportation capacity is defined based on resource type and robot class. Robot and resource dynamics and the CaTL mission are jointly encoded in a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP), which maximizes disjoint robot and resource robustness while minimizing spurious movement of both. We propose a multi-robustness approach for Multi-Class Signal Temporal Logic (mcSTL), allowing for generalized quantitative semantics across multiple predicate classes. Thus, we compute availability robustness scores for robots and resources separately. Finally, we conduct multiple experiments demonstrating functionality and time performance by varying resources and storage types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses forestry planning challenges arising from supply-demand imbalances. In forest planning, supply often exceeds demand because supplies are known in advance, while demands are known more short term when ordered. This leads to so-called "creaming," where forest planners select nearby areas first. With static supply and incremental demand information, average transportation distance increases over the planning horizon. To mitigate this, we propose an approach to artificially balance supply and demand. This can be achieved by including additional time periods with additional demand making up the factual difference. We evaluate three planning approaches to model the extended demand, varying the number of time periods and extension duration. Through simulations, we compare these approaches to traditional methods and theoretical solutions. Our proposed approach aims to better keep the average distance balanced throughout the overall planning periods. It ensures that average transportation distances are not excessively favorable in the initial periods, nor unreasonably high in the later periods, resulting in a favorable equilibrium in the average transportation distance over time. It makes sure that we do not need the additional truck capacity at certain times. We assess our proposed approaches using a case study from a Swedish forestry company, demonstrating their superiority over current practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban Transportation Planning is increasingly being brought into focus by the interaction between land use and transportation services. Urban transportation includes all kinds of products, from pedestrian vehicles and movements to land use. Especially in rapidly developing areas, the distance between land use and transportation needs to be more careful and planned. As urbanization grows, transportation problems gradually increase, and this situation needs to be resolved. Where urbanization expands, the concept of accessibility emerges. Hiding in an accessibility place. In our study, the interaction between urban transportation planning and land use in Ankara was examined. Structures have been made on the effects of Ankara population data on transportation. In particular, the improvement in the openness of rail systems and EGO buses was discussed. With the proliferation of bicycles, how bicycle transportation was included in land use and what kind of practices were implemented were discussed, and the bicycle paths planned in Ankara were examined. Investigations were made on how the increasing population and transportation were affected by the development of shopping centers and industrial zones, and a transportation map of the industrial zones was prepared. As a result, continuity should be ensured in the planning decisions developed for Ankara province. Continuous Master Development Plan should be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Planning Education & Research is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Transportation systems shape the built environment of cities and the lived experiences of their residents, but equitable public participation in municipal transportation decision-making is limited. Furthermore, municipal transportation decision-making—and thus public participation within it—exists in a complicated field of transportation provision, while intersecting with a myriad of policy issues. This research article draws on Chicago as a case study and existing research in transportation and planning to argue for equity-oriented capacity building by transportation agencies. Such capacity building should more explicitly clarify official and informal decision-making processes and their politicized nature to enhance equitable, meaningful impact on transportation decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temporary L.A. Al Fresco outdoor dining program provided crucial support to restaurants, bars and cafes during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research performs an economic analysis of the program, comparing parking meter revenue with sales tax revenue and compares treatment corridors with Al Fresco to control corridors without Al Fresco. Results show the program has been successful in keeping more than 80% of businesses open during the pandemic. Treatment corridors with Al Fresco generated an increase of $12 million in gross sales in 2022 compared to 2019. The City of Los Angeles stands to benefit economically and socially by transitioning into a permanent L.A. Al Fresco program.

Within the US, Los Angeles has been at the forefront of making efforts to factor gender inclusivity into transportation planning. In 2021, LADOT released Changing Lanes: A Gender Equity Transportation Study, which found that LA’s current transportation system is not adequately serving low-income and BIPOC women, girls, and gender minorities. To address these inequities, LADOT is taking the next steps to implement gender-inclusive transportation infrastructure design strategies. This capstone, Designing Streetscapes for Gender Inclusivity, presents case studies on infrastructure that supports walking, biking, rolling, and waiting and strategies that can improve comfort and safety in transportation environments. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with planners from five transportation agencies: the Seattle Department of Transportation, the New York City Department of Transportation, TriMet (Portland Region), the Minneapolis Department of Public Works, and the Austin Transportation Department. Transportation guidelines and plans produced by these agencies were also reviewed. From the information gathered, five case studies were developed, each focusing on a different strategy for improving gender inclusivity in streetscape design: pedestrian street lighting, public seating, bus stop amenities, pedestrian infrastructure, and bike infrastructure. Coupled with an equity-focused and data-driven project prioritization approach that takes gendered differences in travel behavior into account, the implementation of these design strategies can ensure the needs of women, girls, and gender minorities who rely on active transportation and public transit are met.

Despite increasing attention to theories in transportation equity, few focus on specific social groups, such as older people. Scholars and practitioners need to better understand the implications that residential location, access to transportation, and technology resources have for older people's quality of life. Drawing on literature from urban planning, gerontology, and public health, I develop a framework, accessibility capability, that will support the planning of future transportation systems and neighborhoods to accommodate older people's travel needs. Scholars and practitioners can benefit from this critical synthesis of literature as they consider how to build more age-friendly cities and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Los Angeles has adopted a “Vision Zero” policy to eliminate, or at the very least meaningfully reduce, fatal and severe traffic collisions. A road diet, also known as a “lane reconfiguration”, consists of converting vehicle travel lanes to other uses in order to serve safety or transportation-related goals. It is a tool that can help achieve the Vision Zero policy goal by discouraging speeding and reducing risky lane changes to improve road safety. This report studies the safety impacts of high ADT road diets to determine whether the existing 20,000 ADT threshold should be revisited. I compared collisions and speeds on five high ADT road diet corridors to 16 similar multi-lane, untreated streets segments in Los Angeles. Collision rates in the high ADT road diet corridors were 44% lower than in the comparison corridors. Fatal injuries were 200% lower and severe injuries were 37% lower. The average vehicle travel time for the comparison corridors was only about 11 seconds faster than in the road diet corridors. Thus, I recommend for the city to consider revisiting the ADT threshold guidelines for road diets in order to implement more high ADT road diets though city initiatives to improve road safety.

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]

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The recent COVID-19 pandemic once again showed the value of harnessing reliable and timely data in fighting the disease. Obtained from multiple sources via different collection streams, an immense amount of data is processed to understand and predict the future state of the disease. Apart from predicting the spatio–temporal dynamics, it is used to foresee the changes in human mobility patterns and travel behaviors and understand the mobility and spread speed relationship. During this period, data-driven analytic approaches and Operations Research tools are widely used by scholars to prescribe emerging transportation and location planning problems to guide policy-makers in making effective decisions. In this study, we provide a review of studies which tackle transportation and location problems during the COVID-19 pandemic with a focus on data analytics. We discuss the major data collecting streams utilized during the pandemic era, highlight the importance of rapid and reliable data sharing, and give an overview of the challenges and limitations on the use of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferating need for sustainability intervention in food grain transportation planning is anchoring the attention of researchers in the interests of stakeholders and environment at large. Uncertainty associated with food grain supply further intensifies the problem steering the need for designing robust, cost-efficient and sustainable models. In line with this, this paper aims to develop a robust and sustainable intermodal transportation model to facilitate single type of food grain commodity shipments while considering procurement uncertainty, greenhouse gas emissions, and intentional hub disruption. The problem is designed as a mixed integer non-linear robust optimisation model on a hub and spoke network for evaluating near optimal shipment quantity, route selection and hub location decisions. The robust optimisation approach considers minimisation of total relative regret associated with total cost subject to several real-time constraints. A version of Particle Swarm Optimisation with Differential Evolution is proposed to tackle the resulting NP-hard problem. The model is tested with two other state-of the art meta-heuristics for small, medium, and large datasets subject to different procurement scenarios inspired from real time food grain operations in Indian context. Finally, the solution is evaluated with respect to total cost, model and solution robustness for all instances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the challenges of implementing TOD development in response to urban and transportation problems in Thessaloniki, Greece. This research attempts to highlight current discussions around the transferability and adaptability of the TOD model, concentrating on implementation issues that take into account the unique nature of Thessaloniki as a Greek city. The consideration of this research, given the public transportation system of Thessaloniki city which lags behind other European cities with comparable size and metropolitan characteristics, is that it is mostly based on the bus network. Thus, resulting in the expansion of metropolitan areas and urban growth completely dependent on the use of private vehicles for daily transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transit Oriented Development (TOD) has been used in the past decades to cope with urban planning and transportation issues. Despite its successful of adoption to improve land use development, transit demand, economic growth and job opportunities, there is little evidence of practical implementation that takes into account the principle of TOD including density, diversity, and design. This research uses stations located in Java Island in Indonesia as a case study. A combination of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) of AHP and TOPSIS has been used to generate potential station for TOD development. The methodology suggests parameters that should be prioritized when designing TOD. It consists of intermodal transport, land use allocation, and commercial and retail density. Out of 389 stations across five provinces under investigation, the findings of this research have found seven stations that are suitable for urban TOD, and 14 stations that can be established as suburban TOD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Bangalore's Transportation Department, the number of transport vehicles in the city will be close to 85.6 lakh two wheelers, 50 lakh automobiles, and 20 lakh transport vehicles by the end of 2023. Two-wheelers account for 58.41% of all vehicles, while Light Motor Vehicles (LMVs) account for 22%, Heavy Motor Vehicle (HMVs) for 11%, and other vehicles account for 8.59%. Therefore, there is a need for efficient transportation planning. From earlier research, it was found that activity-based modeling is more efficient for evaluation. In this study, a method was proposed to develop an activity-based travel demand model for the selected zones of Bangalore city, and work trips were generated from the Global Tech Park. The trips were monitored, and it was found that people came from all around Bengaluru. Four zones in Bengaluru were chosen for this study because they provided the most travel to the Global Tech Park. The four zones were Kengeri, Mylasandra, RR Nagar, and Vijaynagar. The data were collected through individual person surveys, considering the influential parameters in developing person tours. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software, and models were developed based on parameters such as age, sex, monthly income, distance traveled, active travel, daily travel cost, and vehicle ownership. The results obtained in the form of the models were compared with those of traditional models. In addition, the factors influencing the trips of each individual were studied, and the effects of these factors were analyzed. The results obtained were satisfactory in terms of the R2 value and other testing parameters. From the primary data analysis, it was found that the preference for modal choices of the public increased from public transport (i.e., buses) to private transport (i.e., owned cars) as per the increase in age, income, professions, travel distance, and daily travel cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifying traffic congestion is a critical task for transportation planning and research. Numerous metrics have been developed, mainly focusing on changes in vehicle speeds, their extents, and travel time. In this study, new metrics are presented using the Hägerstrand's space-time cube that has been studied from time geography perspectives since the 1960s. Particularly, the product of distance and time, i.e., distanceTime, is proposed as a base metric to measure traffic congestion amounts. Using the base metric such as mileHours, metrics of weighted congestion and normalized congestion amounts were also developed. New metrics were applied to six metropolitan areas and their vicinities in the United States (Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Dallas and Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and New York), and congestion amounts were calculated and compared. The Google Traffic Layer API was used to obtain traffic congestion datasets for six months (April–September 2022), and GIS (geographic information systems) was used for delineating road features and traffic intensity levels. Among the six areas, New York and its vicinity showed the largest congestion when only heavy congestion was used. Los Angeles and its vicinity showed the largest congestion when all congestion levels were considered. This study shows that the proposed metrics are very effective in summarizing traffic amounts and broadly applicable for further analyses of traffic congestion phenomena by associating various other factors, such as weekdays, months, or gas prices. The new metrics developed in this research may help transportation researchers and practitioners by providing them with a set of metrics applicable to summarizing congestion amounts by synthesizing congestion intensity, extent, and duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Street networks may be planned according to clear organizing principles or they may evolve organically through accretion, but their configurations and orientations help define a city’s spatial logic and order. Measures of entropy reveal a city’s streets’ order and disorder. Past studies have explored individual cases of orientation and entropy, but little is known about broader patterns and trends worldwide. This study examines street network orientation, configuration, and entropy in 100 cities around the world using OpenStreetMap data and OSMnx. It measures the entropy of street bearings in weighted and unweighted network models, along with each city’s typical street segment length, average circuity, average node degree, and the network’s proportions of four-way intersections and dead-ends. It also develops a new indicator of orientation-order that quantifies how a city’s street network follows the geometric ordering logic of a single grid. A cluster analysis is performed to explore similarities and differences among these study sites in multiple dimensions. Significant statistical relationships exist between city orientation-order and other indicators of spatial order, including street circuity and measures of connectedness. On average, US/Canadian study sites are far more grid-like than those elsewhere, exhibiting less entropy and circuity. These indicators, taken in concert, help reveal the extent and nuance of the grid. These methods demonstrate automatic, scalable, reproducible tools to empirically measure and visualize city spatial order, illustrating complex urban transportation system patterns and configurations around the world.