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Background: The built environments in which we work, live, and play can influence physical activity behaviors, and perceptions of these environments are associated with walking behavior. This study's objective is to compare national-level data on perceptions of the near-home walking environment from the 2015 and 2020 National Health Interview Survey. Methods: Adults in 2015 (n = 30,811) and 2020 (n = 29,636) reported perceptions of walkable supports (roads, sidewalks, paths, or trails; sidewalks on most streets), destinations (shops, stores, or markets; bus or transit stops; movies, libraries, or churches; places that help you relax, clear your mind, and reduce stress), and barriers to walking (traffic; crime; animals). Age-adjusted prevalence estimates, prevalence differences, and 95% confidence intervals were calculated overall and by demographic characteristics. Results: The reported prevalence of roads, sidewalks, paths, or trails for walking increased overall (85.3% in 2015 to 88.0% in 2020) and for many subgroups. Perceived places to walk to for relaxation, to clear your mind, and to reduce stress increased overall (72.1% in 2015 to 77.1% in 2020) and for all subgroups. Perceptions of crime as a barrier to walking decreased overall (12.5% in 2015 to 11.2% in 2020) and for some subgroups. From 2015 to 2020, the proportion of adults perceiving roads, sidewalks, paths, or trails; places to relax; and crime as a barrier to walking improved. Conclusions: Continuing to monitor perceptions of the walking environment could contribute to progress toward national walking and walkability goals in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the traffic efficiency of bus at a group of intersections and reduce their delay, this paper develops a speed guidance strategy for buses under travel time control at intersection groups. The approach considers the influence of bus departure time, bus station arrival rate, and bus station dwell time. Simulation experiments are carried out on three consecutive intersections along Jinshan Avenue in Fuzhou, China. Results show that the average travel time of buses, the average delay of buses, and the average delay per capita in the priority direction are reduced by 5.5%, 9.9%, and 9.4%, respectively. The optimal rate of the average number of bus stops reached 15.2%. The indicators of the non-priority direction of social vehicles are not significantly affected. It shows that the efficiency of buses has improved after implementing the speed guidance strategy at the intersection groups without affecting the social vehicles as far as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An investigation is reported on bus bunching and its spatiotemporal patterns that considers six bus routes in Kolkata City, West Bengal, India. With historical GPS data as inputs, bunching occurrences are identified using the spatiotemporal–density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (ST–DBSCAN) algorithm. To determine the impact of bunching on various bus stops, k-means++ clustering was used on top of ST–DBSCAN, and subsequently, spatiotemporal bunching patterns were investigated. Some bus stops are consecutively impacted by bunching; however, others are impacted in an isolated manner. To capture the spatiotemporal propagation of bunching, a new indicator termed the propagation ratio is proposed, which could classify the bunching as propagating or isolated. Bunching occurrences are propagating for some bus routes and isolated for others, which justifies the need to prioritize routes displaying propagating nature. Of interest, bunching is identified on high and low-frequency bus routes, which indicates the need to relook at the operational planning of all the bus routes regardless of their frequency. At times, excessive bunching is detected during lean periods of the day, which suggests the necessity of modifying the dispatching headways that are based on passenger demand during these lean periods. The outcomes from this work further indicate that all the bus stops along a bus route are not equally impacted by bunching. The spatiotemporal cluster plots could successfully capture the initial bunching occurrence points and their variation with time, which could provide an opportunity for the operators to apply time-varying remedial measures. The insights developed from this work could be used advantageously by operators and policymakers for mitigating bus bunching and improving the urban bus service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the imbalance between normal and abnormal samples in existing anomaly detection datasets, as well as the complexity in defining anomalies, we introduce a new dataset named Remote Stop to provide data support for existing algorithms. Concurrently, we propose an unsupervised video anomaly detection method based on conditional generative adversarial networks. Our approach trains the model to learn the distribution of normal video data, enabling it to identify anomalous events. The incorporation of a spatial attention mechanism enhances the model's performance in detecting abnormal behaviors in video frames while maintaining high processing efficiency. Moreover, unlike other methods that assess the entire image, our approach uses overlapping image blocks to determine anomalies, enhancing the accuracy and robustness of the model in image segmentation. These innovations not only address the issues of scarce samples and high-cost labeling but also provide new perspectives and tools for video anomaly detection in the field of public safety. The effectiveness of the model was validated on the Avenue and Ped2 datasets and applied to our newly created dataset (Remote Stop), achieving an AUC of 84.3% and processing 61 video frames per second. This enables efficient sequential processing of large-scale video data, offering positive contributions to enhancing public road safety by providing early warnings and enabling timely preventive measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Travel times between different locations form the basis for most contemporary measures of spatial accessibility. Travel times allow to estimate the potential for interaction between people and places, and is therefore a vital measure for understanding the functioning, sustainability, and equity of cities. Here, we provide an open travel time matrix dataset that describes travel times between the centroids of all cells in a grid (N = 13,132) covering the metropolitan area of Helsinki, Finland. The travel times recorded in the dataset follow a door-to-door approach that provides comparable travel times for walking, cycling, public transport and car journeys, including all legs of each trip by each mode, such as the walk to a bus stop, or the search for a parking spot. We used the r5py Python package, that we developed specifically for this computation. The data are sensitive to diurnal variations and to variations between people (e.g. slow and fast walking speed). We validated the data against the Google Directions API and present use cases from a planning practice. The five key principles that guided the data set design and production – comparability, simplicity, reproducibility, transferability, and sensitivity to temporal and interpersonal variations – ensure that urban and transport planners, business and researchers alike can use the data in a wide range of applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mixed traffic flow of various types of vehicles at bus station is severe, which has an impact on the overall safety of traffic. Especially upstream of bus station, since buses need to change lane in order to stop at the bus station, it interacts with social vehicles. Thus, in this paper, a two-lane CA model considering the mixed traffic flow composing of buses, cars and nonmotorized vehicles upstream of a bus station is proposed. Through several field surveys, the movement characteristics of the vehicles are obtained and the basic parameters are calibrated. For comparison, five cases about bus stops are studied. Several indexes (i.e. parallel time, blind area dwell time, time to collision, potential collision energy) are analyzed to assess the safety upstream of the bus station. Four safety indices are used to examine, based on simulation findings, the impact of bus station on vehicle safety and the significance of establishing exclusive nonmotorized vehicle lanes and exclusive bus lanes. Finally, several safety-related recommendations for drivers and management are provided. These findings offer a theoretical basis for driver management and optimal design of bus stations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nine in 10 road traffic deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite this disproportionate burden, few studies have examined built environment correlates of road traffic injury in these settings, including in Latin America. We examined road traffic collisions in Bogotá, Colombia, occurring between 2015 and 2019, and assessed the association between neighborhood-level built environment features and pedestrian injury and death. We used descriptive statistics to characterize all police-reported road traffic collisions that occurred in Bogotá between 2015 and 2019. Cluster detection was used to identify spatial clustering of pedestrian collisions. Adjusted multivariate Poisson regression models were fit to examine associations between several neighborhood-built environment features and rate of pedestrian road traffic injury and death. A total of 173,443 police-reported traffic collisions occurred in Bogotá between 2015 and 2019. Pedestrians made up about 25% of road traffic injuries and 50% of road traffic deaths in Bogotá between 2015 and 2019. Pedestrian collisions were spatially clustered in the southwestern region of Bogotá. Neighborhoods with more street trees (RR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.82–0.98), traffic signals (0.89, 0.81–0.99), and bus stops (0.89, 0.82–0.97) were associated with lower pedestrian road traffic deaths. Neighborhoods with greater density of large roads were associated with higher pedestrian injury. Our findings highlight the potential for pedestrian-friendly infrastructure to promote safer interactions between pedestrians and motorists in Bogotá and in similar urban contexts globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of shared e-scooters with public transit is a promising solution for urban mobility's first/last-mile challenge. This study explores spatiotemporal factors influencing this integration, using 35-day e-scooter trip data from Chicago. Employing a random-effect negative binomial approach, we modeled the frequency of e-scooter trips to access/egress to/from bus stops and train stations. Results indicate that weather conditions, design features like intersection density, and multimodal network density significantly influence usage. The transit system characteristics such as service frequency have a positive effect on the integration of e-scooters and trains while a similar effect for bus and e-scooter integration was not significant. Furthermore, safety-related variables such as accident and crime rates as well as demographic characteristics were also revealed to be significant factors in our study. These findings offer vital insights to urban planners and policymakers for infrastructure, safety enhancements, and interventions to encourage efficient e-scooter-public transit integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban (suburban) railway is a fast and convenient rail transit system connecting urban and suburban areas, and a refined analysis of the diversity of public service facilities around its stations can help to promote the intensive use of land around rail stations. However, the differences in the diversity of public service facilities in the railway life circle between urban and suburban railway stations and the factors affecting them are not clear. This paper takes the Beijing Suburban Railway Line Sub-center (Line S1) as a case study, uses the Shannon-Wiener index to measure the spatial diversity characteristics of public service facilities, and utilizes a multi-scale geographically weighted regression model to explore the influencing factors. The findings indicate that: (1) Centered on the stations, all six stations show a "less-more-less" ring or half-ring to the left distribution structure of the comprehensive diversity index of public service facilities within their study areas, with an increase followed by a decrease. (2) The influence of each influencing factor on the diversity of market-featured facilities exhibits significant differences. The most substantial spatial heterogeneity is observed in the distances to the nearest subway stations and bus stops. Distances to subway and urban (suburban) railway stations exhibit different spatial distribution characteristics within urban and suburban areas on Line S1. In urban areas, the closer the distance to the subway station or the further the distance to the railway station, the greater the diversity of public service facilities. Conversely, in suburban areas, the opposite is true. The conclusions of this research provide a scientific methodology and improvement measures to facilitate the construction of railway life circles in suburban regions of megacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, dockless bike-sharing (DBS) systems are acclaimed for their convenience and seamless integration with public transportation, such as buses and metros. While much research has focused on the connection between the built environment and the metro–DBS integration, the influence of urban road characteristics on DBS and bus integration remains underexplored. This study defined the parking area of DBS around bus stops by a rectangular buffer so as to extract the DBS–bus integration, followed by measuring the access and egress integration using real-time data on dockless bike locations. This indicated that the average trip distance for DBS–bus access and egress integration corresponded to 1028.47 m and 1052.33 m, respectively. A zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) regression model assessed how urban roads and other transportation facilities correlate with DBS–bus integration across various scenarios. The findings revealed that certain street patterns strongly correlate with frequent connection hotspots. Furthermore, high-grade roads and 'dense loops on a stick' street types may negatively influence DBS–bus integration. The increase in the proportion of three-legged intersections and culs-de-sac in the catchment makes it difficult for bus passengers to transfer by DBS. These insights offer valuable guidance for enhancing feeder services in public transit systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alighting bus stops inferring is of great significance for origin–destination estimation. Cellular signaling data (CSD), a kind of individual trajectory generated by mobile phones, provides a new idea for alighting stop identification. To explore the capacity of CSD in this field, this study proposes a method of inferring alighting bus stops by integrating smart card data, bus GPS data, and CSD. Firstly, a correspondence table is generated by individual matching, which correspondingly links mobile phone users in CSD and bus passengers in smart card data. Secondly, the inferred alighting bus stops are determined by the radii of the circumscribed circles of triangles consisting of directly projective points, piecewise projective points, and CSD points. The proposed method is verified by an experimental dataset from a behavioral simulation experiment of 10 volunteers in Foshan, China. The results show that the recognition rate is 92.94% and the inference accuracy is 65.82%, or 93.67% under a one-stop error. In the case of a real dataset in Foshan, the proposed method with a recognition rate of 53.02% highly outperforms the trip-chain-based method. The difference in the recognition rate between the two datasets is due to that the real dataset is more likely to be incomplete than the experimental data, which indicates that the performance and effectiveness of the proposed method are sensitive to the data quality and completeness of CSD and bus GPS data. Having said that, the proposed method can infer both alighting stops of linked bus trips and single unlinked bus trips. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As public transportation faces increasing ridership demand, metrics such as the number of passengers denied boarding become important for measuring the service quality of transit systems. Many studies in the past have used automated fare collection (AFC) (also known as smart card data) and automated vehicle location data to infer the probability distributions for commuters that experience unable-to-board (UTB) events in metro systems, but few have studied UTB events for buses. In this paper, we demonstrate that the probability distribution of UTB commuters inferred from AFC data can be modelled by a truncated binomial distribution under certain assumptions. This model is then validated against synthetic UTB events generated using simulations and against actual UTB events recorded from ground surveys. Finally, we apply our model on real AFC data of commuters in the Singapore bus network to serve as a case study. Our method enables transport planners and operators to identify bus stops and time intervals where overcrowding and UTB events is prevalent, so that appropriate measures can be taken to mitigate such occurrences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The acceleration of urbanization intensifies the urban heat island, outdoor activities (especially the road travel) are seriously affected by the overheating environment, and the comfort and safety of the bus shelter as an accessory facility of road travel are crucial to the passenger's experience. This study investigated the basic information (e.g., distribution, orientation) of 373 bus shelters in Guangzhou and extracted the typical style by classifying the characteristics of these bus shelters. Additionally, we also measured the thermal environment of some bus shelters in summer and investigated the cooling behavior of passengers in such an environment. The results show that the typical style of bus shelters in the core area of Guangzhou is north–south orientation, with only one station board at the end of the bus, two backboards, two roofs (opaque green), and the underlying surface is made of red permeable brick. The air temperature and relative humidity under different bus shelters, tree shading areas, and open space in summer are 34–37 °C and 49–56%, respectively. For the bus shelters with heavy traffic loads, the air temperature is basically above 35.5 °C, and the thermal environment is not comfortable. During the hot summer, when there is no bus shelter or trees to shade the sun, the waiting people adjust their position with the sun's height, azimuth angles, and direct solar radiation intensity to reduce the received radiation as much as possible, which brings great inconvenience to them. When only bus shelters provide shade, people tend to gather in the shaded space, and cooling measures such as umbrellas, hats, and small fans are still needed to alleviate thermal discomfort. However, the aforementioned various spontaneous cooling behaviors still cannot effectively alleviate overheating, and it is very important to increase auxiliary cooling facilities in bus shelters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Particulate matter of 2.5 µm and smaller (PM2.5) is known to cause many respiratory health problems, such as asthma and heart disease. A primary source of PM2.5 is emissions from cars, trucks, and buses. Emissions from university transit bus systems could create zones of high PM2.5 concentration at their bus stops. This work recruited seven university students who regularly utilized the transit system to use a low-cost personal aerosol monitor (AirBeam) each time they arrived at a campus bus stop. Each participant measured PM2.5 concentrations every time they were at a transit-served bus stop over four weeks. PM2.5 concentration data from the AirBeam were compared with an ADR-1500 high-cost monitor and EPA PM2.5 reference measurements. This methodology allowed for identifying higher-than-average concentration zones at the transit bus stops compared to average measurements for the county. By increasing access to microenvironmental data, this project can contribute to public health efforts of personal protection and prevention by allowing individuals to measure and understand their exposure to PM2.5 at the bus stop. This work can also aid commuters, especially those with pre-existing conditions who use public transportation, in making more informed health decisions and better protecting themselves against new or worsening respiratory conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City-wide near-miss data can be beneficial for traffic safety estimation. In this study, we evaluate urban traffic safety and examine spatial patterns by incorporating city-wide near-miss data (59,277 near-misses). Our methodology employs a grid-based method, the Empirical Bayes (EB) approach, and spatial analysis tools including global Moran's I and local Moran's I. The study findings reveal that near-misses have the strongest correlation with observed crash frequency among all the variables studied. Interestingly, the ratio of near-misses to crashes is roughly estimated to be 1957:1, providing a potentially useful benchmark for urban areas. For other variables, an increased number of intersections and bus stops, along with a greater road length, contribute to a higher crash frequency. Conversely, residential and open-space land use rates show a negative correlation with crash frequency. Through spatial analysis, potential risk hotspots including roads linking bridges and tunnels, and avenues bustling with pedestrian activity, are highlighted. The study also identified negative local spatial correlations in crash frequencies, suggesting significant safety risk variations within relatively short distances. By mapping the differences between observed and predicted crash frequencies, we identified specific grid areas with unexpectedly high or low crash frequencies. These findings highlight the crucial role of near-miss data in urban traffic safety policy and planning, particularly relevant with the imminent rise of autonomous and connected vehicles. By integrating near-miss data into safety estimations, we can develop a more comprehensive understanding of traffic safety and, thus, more effectively address urban traffic risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To unravel the general relationship between bus travel and land use around bus stops and along bus routes and to promote their coordinated development, this paper explores a method to estimate passenger flow volumes from and to bus stops based on land use types, intensities, and spatial distributions around bus stops and along bus routes. Firstly, following the principle of the gravity model, which considers traffic volumes analogous to gravity based on trip generation and distance impedance between traffic analysis zones (TAZs), a gravitational logic estimation method for passenger flow volumes from and to bus stops was constructed with land use elements between bus stop TAZs and the upstream and downstream collections of bus stop TAZs. Building upon this, the passenger flow volumes from and to 38 bus stops in the Xueyuan Square area of Dalian during weekday morning peak hours were taken as the experimental objects. The basic estimation models of two gravity sets corresponding to passenger flow volumes from and to bus stops were constructed using the bus travel generation based on the aggregation of area-based origin unit method and the bus travel distance impedance based on the probability density method. Finally, the reliability of the estimation method of passenger flow volumes from and to bus stops was verified by regression fitting between the surveyed values of passenger flow volume and the estimated values of the basic models. The results indicate that the fuzzy estimation and transformation of bus travel based on land use elements, which serves as a crucial lever for facilitating strategic alignment in transit-oriented development (TOD), can be effectively achieved by using the area-based origin unit method to aggregate bus travel generation and the probability density method to evaluate the bus travel distance impedance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we develop a multi-objective integrated optimization method for feeder buses of rail transit based on realistic considerations. We propose a bus stop selection method that considers the influence of shared motorcycles, which can score the importance of alternative bus stops and select those with the highest scores as objectives. The objective of the model in this paper is to minimize both the travel costs of passengers and the operating costs of the bus company. This is achieved by optimizing feeder bus routes, the frequency of departures, and interchange discounts to enhance the connectivity between feeder buses and rail transit. In addition, to ensure the feasibility of generated routes in the real road network, a genetic algorithm encoded with priority is used to solve this model. We use the Xingyao Road subway station in Kunming as an example, and the results show that the optimization method is effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the research is to determine the efficiency in population and area coverage of the set of bus stops to existing land uses in the city, allowing the identification of possible shortcomings, which leads to the formulation of restructuring proposals in terms of the location of the stops. The research methodology to be applied includes the use of geostatistical models of accessibility based on GIS-type digital tools, supported by the collection of field information and road inventories. As a main result, it is obtained that the stop-system coverage allows the access of more than 80% of the population in a trip time by walking less than 5 minutes. Likewise, it is possible to identify a robust redundancy concerning the system of stops. Thus, it is concluded that the research process facilitates the evaluation and identification of possible interventions, guaranteeing a better coverage of the stops set regarding the city's existing activities.

Understanding which aspects can have the greatest influence on the performance, comfort and safety of a public transport system can be of great help in improving its operation and promoting more sustainable mobility. To find out more about these aspects, a survey was carried out among more than 180 drivers of urban bus transport systems in seven medium-sized cities in Spain. The drivers' perspective has been insufficiently taken into account in previous research, despite the fact that these workers have a high and direct knowledge of the operation and problems directly affecting the service. The data collected through this survey have been analysed using descriptive statistics and an Ordered Probit model. The results have allowed us to detect specific aspects to improve the performance and comfort of users and drivers such as the correct location and length of bus stops and enforcing regulation to ensure that buses have priority in traffic and that illegal parking does not interfere with their operations. In addition, bus lanes were seen as important by drivers to improve the comfort and safety of the service. Other factors related to safety were generally highly rated and there was little dispersion in the responses about their importance, although aspects such as proper visibility, avoiding illegal parking, and campaigns to encourage bus users to be aware of their surroundings stood out in the answers. Finally, the payment system was highlighted as very relevant to ensure the performance and comfort of users and drivers during the operation at bus stops. Improving this system was identified as the measure that could have the greatest impact on the performance of the service as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to assemble and present the status of the published information available regarding pedestrian safety near crosswalks and bus stops through a comprehensive search of various databases. It focuses on the influence of crossing environment and bus stops, underlining land-use components, crosswalk quality, traffic control, placement of facilities, and other aspects of pedestrian crossing safety. It also offers a detailed discussion of various study designs and statistical modeling techniques implemented in this context over the years, followed by the suggested interventions to improve safety at such high-risk locations. The existing literature elucidates that traffic management strategies and designs have often prioritized the movement of motorized vehicles, resulting in higher risk to pedestrians. This is especially true for low- and middle-income countries. Also, previous research is mostly aligned with offering solutions with limited reference to the reported crash data. Thus, a holistic approach is needed to identify the contributing factors associated with fatal crashes, assess the safety performance at such locations, and thereby offer sustainable planning and design for pedestrian facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of new towns is one of the main measures to evacuate urban populations and promote regional coordination and urban–rural integration in China. Mining the spatio-temporal pattern of new town hot spots based on multivariate data and analyzing the influencing factors of new town construction hot spots can provide a strategic basis for new town construction, but few researchers have extracted and analyzed the influencing factors of new town internal hot spots and their classification. In order to define the key points of Wuhan's new town construction and promote the construction of new cities in an orderly and efficient manner, this paper first constructs a space-time cube based on the luminous remote sensing data from 2010 to 2019, extracts hot spots and emerging hot spots in Wuhan New City, selects 14 influencing factor indicators such as population density, and uses bivariate Moran's index to analyze the influencing factors of hot spots, indicating that the number of bus stops and vegetation coverage rate are the most significant. Secondly, the disorderly multivariate logistic regression model is used to analyze the influencing factors of emerging hot spots. The results show that population density, vegetation coverage, road density, distance to water bodies, and distance to train stations are the most significant factors. Finally, based on the analysis results, some relevant suggestions for the construction of Wuhan New City are proposed, providing theoretical support for the planning and policy guidance of new cities, and offering reference for the construction of new towns in other cities, promoting the construction of high-quality cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For most ultralong bus lines, low punctuality rates and vehicle bunching are two main challenges. One potential strategy to solve these two problems is to split an ultralong line into two or three shorter lines according to historical passenger flow patterns as well as other presetting objectives and constraints. Thus, in this paper, a multiobjective optimization model is first established in consideration of both passenger flow distribution and coline metro networks. Then, the optimal truncated stop is determined by estimating the model results generated by enumerating each potential bus stop derived from related metro stops. The nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) is applied to solve the model efficiently. A case study conducted on a real bus line associated with metro networks in Beijing, China, demonstrates the efficiency of the optimization strategy adoption in terms of operating cost and passenger travel time, even with a slight increase in passenger cost. Besides, the multivehicle type is also referred in the experiments to verify economic efficiency to reduce operational costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study selected 24 highly popular pocket parks in Beijing and conducted field research to collect data on park use during weekdays and weekends. SPSS correlation analysis and the development of a decision tree model were used to rank the key factors that influence the flexibility and intensity of park use on weekdays and weekends. The findings indicated that the key factors impacting the flexibility and intensity of park use on weekdays, in order of importance, are seat density, recreation facilities density, land use entropy (LUE), distance to a public toilet, POI density, and 5-min accessibility. On the other hand, the main factors influencing the flexibility and intensity of park use on weekends are 5-min accessibility, seat density, POI density, fitness facilities density, distance to the bus stop, distance to a public toilet, and life service facilities density. These findings offer valuable insights for the study of pocket parks in other cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildlife mortality due to collisions with vehicles (roadkill) is one of the predominant negative effects exerted by roads on many wildlife species. Reducing roadkill is therefore a major component of wildlife conservation. Roadkill is affected by various factors, including road attributes and traffic volume. It is theorized that the effect of traffic volume on roadkill probability should be unimodal. However, empirical evidence for this theory is lacking. Using a large‐scale roadkill database of 18 wildlife species in Israel, encompassing 2846 km of roads over 10 years, we explored the effects of traffic volume and road attributes (e.g., road lighting, verge vegetation) on roadkill probability with a multivariate generalized linear mixed model. A unimodal effect of traffic volume was identified for the striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), whereas 5 species demonstrated a novel quadratic U‐shaped effect (e.g., golden jackal [Canis aureus]). Four species showed a negative linear effect (e.g., wild boar [Sus scrofa]). We also identified varying effects of road attributes on roadkill. For instance, road lighting and roadside trees decreased roadkill for several species, whereas bus stops and concrete guardrails led to increased roadkill. The theorized unimodal effect of traffic volume may only apply to large, agile species, and the U‐shaped effect could be related to intraspecies variability in traffic avoidance behavior. In general, we found that both high‐traffic and low‐traffic roads can pose a high mortality risk for wildlife. It is therefore important to monitor roadkill on low‐traffic roads and adapt road attributes to mitigate roadkill. Road design for effective roadkill mitigation includes reducing the use of concrete guardrails and median barriers where possible and avoiding dense bushes in verge landscaping. These measures are complemented by employing wildlife detection systems, driver warnings, and seasonal speed reduction measures on low‐traffic roads identified as roadkill hotspots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common to observe the epidemic risk perception (ERP) and a decline in subjective well-being (SWB) in the context of public health events, such as Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, there have been few studies exploring the impact of individuals' ERP within living space on their SWB, especially from a geographical and daily activity perspective after the resumption of work and other activities following a wave of the pandemic. In this paper, we conducted a study with 789 participants in urban China, measuring their ERP within living space and examining its influence on their SWB using path analysis. The results indicated that individuals' ERP within their living space had a significant negative effect on their SWB. The density of certain types of facilities within their living space, such as bus stops, subway stations, restaurants, fast food shops, convenience shops, hospitals, and public toilets, had a significantly negative impact on their SWB, mediated by their ERP within living space. Additionally, participation in out-of-home work and other activities not only increased individuals' ERP within living space, but also strengthened its negative effect on their SWB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transportation is one of the state's tools to drive the economy, the Jabodetabek community already has a fairly good means of transportation, one of which is the Transjakarta Bus. Transjakarta buses have also developed their routes and one of the routes that is quite busy is Puri Beta 2 - Latuharhari corridor L13E. Although Transjakarta Route L13E is operated by Express, there are still problems with the frequency of bus arrivals. This is because the L13E route does not fully have a dedicated path. There are still some segments mixed with other traffic. The purpose of this study is to determine and analyze the Transjakarta Bus Performance of Puri Beta 2 – Latuharhari L13E Route. The method used for this research is a survey method to the field to obtain research data. After the data is obtained, then an operational performance analysis will be carried out on performance indicators based on the standards of the Decree of the Director General of Land Transportation No.SK.687 / AJ.206 / DRJD / 2002. From the results of the study of seven operational performance indicators referring to the Decree of the Directorate General of Land Transportation No.687 / AJ.206 / DRJD / 2002 obtained five indicators with category A (Good), namely: 1) Headway (time between), 2) Load Factor (Load Factor), 3) Travel speed, 4) Service Time, 5) Waiting time. While there are 2 indicators with category B (Medium), namely: 1) Frequency, 2) Travel Time. Based on the overall assessment of the Operational Performance of the Directorate General of Land Transportation Decree No.687/AJ.206/DRJD/2002, Transjakarta Bus L13E obtained an A or Good grade. Based on the calculation of the maximum load factor, it is found that the bus stop that has the highest number of passengers or maximum load factor on weekday morning direction 1 towards Latuharhari is Adam Malik stop to Velbak stop, this also happens on weekend morning direction 1 towards Latuharhari, this is because Adam Malik bus stop is a bus stop that is quite busy with universities and densely populated areas and is also one of the stops of choice for the surrounding community to travel to the center city. In this study, it was also found that the maximum load factor on Weekday afternoon direction 2 towards Puri Beta 2 occurred at the Patra Kuningan stop to the Velbak stop, this is because the Patra Kuningan stop is an office area and also the Velbak stop is one of the choices for service users to be able to move to other modes of transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the research is to determine the efficiency in population and area coverage of the set of bus stops to existing land uses in the city, allowing the identification of possible shortcomings, which leads to the formulation of restructuring proposals in terms of the location of the stops. The research methodology to be applied includes the use of geostatistical models of accessibility based on GIS-type digital tools, supported by the collection of field information and road inventories. As a main result, it is obtained that the stop-system coverage allows the access of more than 80% of the population in a trip time by walking less than 5 minutes. Likewise, it is possible to identify a robust redundancy concerning the system of stops. Thus, it is concluded that the research process facilitates the evaluation and identification of possible interventions, guaranteeing a better coverage of the stops set regarding the city's existing activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Electric Bus Dynamic Wireless Charging (EB-DWC) system is a bus charging system that enables electric buses to receive power wirelessly from ground-based electromagnetic induction devices. In this system, how to optimally configure the charging infrastructures while considering the unpredictable nature of bus movement is a great challenge. This paper presents an optimization problem for an EB-DWC system in urban settings, addressing stochastic elements inherent in the vehicle speed, initial charging state, and dwell time at bus stops. We formulate a stochastic planning problem for the EB-DWC system by integrating these uncertainties and apply Monte Carlo sampling techniques to effectively solve this problem. The proposed method can improve the system's robustness effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article titled "INVINCIBLE: CALLING IN THE GUARDIANS AND WITNESSES" is published in the International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies. It discusses the INVINCIBLE project, which is an arts-based storytelling project featuring the stories and artwork of Indigenous youth in care. The project is youth-led, with the INVINCIBLE youth researchers imagining, designing, and creating the stories and artwork. The article emphasizes the importance of refusal as an anticolonial strategy and highlights the power of storytelling in reclaiming Indigenous practices of well-being. The authors express their gratitude to the ancestors and families of the lək̓ʷəŋən and WSÁNEĆ nations, as well as to all Indigenous children and youth who have grown up in colonial systems. [Extracted from the article]

This study investigates traffic safety perceptions of motorcyclists and car drivers toward risky bus driving behaviors (RBDBs) in mixed traffic flow (MTF). The study identified 10 RBDBs and employed images in a unique questionnaire survey. Further, permutation tests were employed to compare perceptions of motorcyclists in scenarios involving bus-motorcycle-car flow and bus-motorcycle flow and to compare their perceptions to those of car drivers'. Moreover, heteroskedastic generalized ordered logit regression models were utilized to predict traffic safety perceptions of motorcyclists and car drivers toward RBDBs. High-speed bus driving is perceived as the most dangerous situation, while continuous flashing of lights at vehicles in front is perceived as the least dangerous. The permutation test revealed that motorcyclists tend to perceive RBDBs as less dangerous in bus-motorcycle flow than in mixed flow with cars, while car drivers consider them safer than motorcyclists. The regression model revealed that among the RBDBs, bus moving at high speeds, abruptly overtaking, abruptly changing lanes, and suddenly pulling over at bus stops are perceived as the most dangerous by motorcyclists and car drivers. The study also discusses the relationships between the socio-demographic characteristics of motorcyclists/car drivers and their safety perception toward RBDBs. These findings could inform the development of interventions to reduce RBDBs and improve traffic safety for motorcyclists and car drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High sunlight and poor air quality in the city of Bandung affect the level of visual comfort. In designing bus stops, space is needed that has visual comfort so that the facilities are maintained and can function well. This research was conducted to determine visual comfort as measured using the Daylight Factor (DF) at bus stops in Bandung. The method used is a quantitative experiment using Drajmarsh and Ladybug software. To identify a bus stop design with stable visual comfort, analysis was conducted at various times and places. The results of the study are guidelines for creating publicly accessible spaces, such as bus stops, in Bandung that make utilization of natural light from the sun from morning to night. This light is crucial for visual information, thermal comfort, and building energy efficiency.

The bilateral Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system is a kind of BRT system in which the stops are located in the middle of the transit lane. By simultaneously serving transit lines in opposite directions, it is particularly designed to save space resources and enhance service quality. To improve the operational efficiency of the bilateral BRT, this paper optimizes the operational performance of bilateral BRT with elastic demand. The objective is to minimize the generalized time cost per passenger of the system by jointly optimizing the headway and number of stops of bilateral BRT. The cost includes the agency operating and user travel. The optimal design model is formulated as a mixed-integer program and solved using a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and a genetic algorithm (GA). We conduct a case study and sensitivity analysis to show the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed approach. We conclude that the optimized minimum generalized cost per passenger is lower than the actual case for all demand levels, especially at off-peak hours, by about 22.5%. In addition, we find that the weights of agency and user costs have the most significant impact on headway, whereas the influence of walking, vehicle speed, and route length is minimal. In contrast, the optimal number of BRT stops is mostly influenced by the route length, and walking speed has essentially no effect on the optimal number of stops. Finally, we find that the generalized cost per passenger at peak hours is 10% to 15% smaller than at off-peak hours in various scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban transportation is pivotal in facilitating citizen mobility, and within this sphere, the thermal comfort experienced at bus stops significantly impacts pedestrians' well-being. This research delves into the analysis of direct sun glare at bus stops utilizing Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) point clouds. Solar angles are calculated to evaluate sun rays, focusing particularly on the summer solstice, and considering the integration of trees to alleviate direct sun glare. The methodological approach comprises four stages: 1) Semantic segmentation of the bus stop environment, 2) Sun glare analysis, 3) Sun glare analysis integrating trees, and 4) Subsoil investigation with Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR). Various algorithms, including DBSCAN and filters for height, width, and intensity, are employed to classify different elements contained in the bus stop. Sun rays are then derived based on sun angles, identifying intersections with street elements and vertical structures like bus stops or facades. Subsequently, these intersections are recalculated, incorporating trees in the bus stop vicinity. Finally, GPR is utilized to assess the viability of adding trees. Three bus stops in Vigo, Spain, serve as the focal points of analysis. The study delineates specific time intervals when sun rays either encounter new vegetation obstacles or remain unobstructed. While both small and large trees show potential in reducing sun glare, larger trees notably exhibit greater effectiveness in blocking sun glare for extended periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in information technologies and vehicle automation have birthed new transportation services, including shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs). Shared autonomous vehicles are on-demand self-driving taxis, with flexible routes and schedules, able to replace personal vehicles for many trips in the near future. The siting and density of pick-up and drop-off (PUDO) points for SAVs, much like bus stops, can be key in planning SAV fleet operations, since PUDOs impact SAV demand, route choices, passenger wait times, and network congestion. Unlike traditional human-driven taxis and ride-hailing vehicles like Lyft and Uber, SAVs are unlikely to engage in quasi-legal procedures, like double parking or fire hydrant pick-ups. In congested settings, like central business districts (CBD) or airport curbs, SAVs and others will not be allowed to pick up and drop off passengers wherever they like. This paper uses an agent-based simulation to model the impact of different PUDO locations and densities in the Austin, Texas CBD, where land values are highest and curb spaces are coveted. In this paper 18 scenarios were tested, varying PUDO density, fleet size and fare price. The results show that for a given fare price and fleet size, PUDO spacing (e.g., one block vs. three blocks) has significant impact on ridership, vehicle-miles travelled, vehicle occupancy, and revenue. A good fleet size to serve the region's 80 core square miles is 4000 SAVs, charging a $1 fare per mile of travel distance, and with PUDOs spaced three blocks of distance apart from each other in the CBD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Hundreds of millions of internal migrants are present in cities in the developing world. Accurately predicting their commuting mode choice and clarifying the effect size of the influencing factors have become increasingly indispensable for formulating and executing socially inclusive transportation plans and policies. Yet, scholarship on internal migrants' travel mode choice is still scarce, particularly in the context of developing country. This study attempts to partly fill this gap. Using empirical data from Xiamen, China, it applies the Light Gradient Boosting (LightGBM) approach, a high-efficiency and high-performance machine learning framework, to predict the commuting mode choice of both the internal migrants and locals. The results show that (1) The built environment has larger impacts on locals' mode choice than on migrants'; (2) For both the migrants and locals, the relative importance of the built environment in predicting commuting mode choice exceeds that of socio-demographics and trip characteristics; (3) Distance to the closest commercial center is the most important factor influencing commuting mode choice of both groups, and bus stop density also contributes a great deal; hence, regional accessibility and transit infrastructure can be given higher priority in intervening the commuting behaviors of migrants and locals. (4) The LightGBM models yield rather high prediction accuracy; their results are further compared with those of conventional discrete choice models and are found to be generally consistent with the latter. Those findings can help inform decision-makers about nuanced policies concerning meeting locals' and migrants' travel demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Barriers to public transport use may be experienced differently by people with various types of disabilities (e.g., physical, intellectual, cognitive, sensory). Thus, it is important to identify the variable needs within each element of the travel chain. For example, the unavailability or low volume of auditory announcements in a stop or station or on the public transport vehicle may be a barrier to people with visual disability who rely on hearing the information. Consequently, this could provoke negative emotions and unpleasant experiences, which may not be the case for people with physical disabilities. The primary objective was to describe the barriers and facilitators to using public transport experienced by people with disabilities (PWD). The secondary aim was to explore experiences in terms of self-efficacy and satisfaction, when using public transport among people with disabilities. A scoping review was conducted. The search was performed in MEDLINE, TRANSPORT DATABASE, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and WEB OF SCIENCE from 1995 to 2023. Of 6,820 citations identified, 34 articles were included in the review for extraction. The main physical and social barriers included lack of ramp, long walking distance, long waiting time, unavailability of information at bus stop or station, and drivers' negative attitudes towards PWD. Personal factors that prevented the use of public transport included lack of confidence, and decreased satisfaction with public transport use. Strategies such as providing ramps on public transport vehicles, availability of kneeling buses and courtesy of bus drivers, and travel training were considered as enablers to the use of public transport that can lead the improved self-efficacy and satisfaction. In conclusion, this review identified the physical and social barriers and facilitators in travel chain, and highlighted issues related to lack of confidence or self-efficacy and decreased satisfaction when PWD and older adults are using public transport. Identifying and understanding the barriers and facilitators to the use of public transport by PWD is a milestone that may help policy makers and transport operators around the world to develop and implement interventions enabling access, use and inclusion of this mode of transport, as the experiences of PWD when using this mode of transport have an impact on their well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Reducing children’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing is crucial to combat childhood obesity. We aimed to estimate the reduction of children’s exposure to food marketing under different policy scenarios and assess exposure differences by socio-economic status. Design: Data on children’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing were compiled from a previous cross-sectional study in which children (n 168) wore wearable cameras and Global Positioning System (GPS) units for 4 consecutive days. For each exposure, we identified the setting, the marketing medium and food/ beverage product category. We analysed the percentage reduction in food marketing exposure for ten policy scenarios and by socio-economic deprivation: (1) no product packaging, (2) no merchandise marketing, (3) no sugary drink marketing, (4) no confectionary marketing in schools, (5) no sugary drink marketing in schools, (6) no marketing in public spaces, (7) no marketing within 400 m of schools, (8) no marketing within 400 m of recreation venues, (9) no marketing within 400 m of bus stops and (10) no marketing within 400 m of major roads. Setting: Wellington region of New Zealand. Participants: 168 children aged 11–14 years. Results: Exposure to food marketing varied by setting, marketing medium and product category. Among the ten policy scenarios, the largest reductions were for plain packaging (60·3 %), no sugary drink marketing (28·8 %) and no marketing in public spaces (22·2 %). There were no differences by socio-economic deprivation. Conclusions: The results suggest that plain packaging would result in the greatest decrease in children’s exposure to food marketing. However, given that children are regularly exposed to unhealthy food marketing in multiple settings through a range of marketing mediums, comprehensive bans are needed to protect children’s health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public transportation out of suburban or rural areas is crucial. Feeder transportation services offer a solution by transporting passengers to areas where more options for public transport are available. On one hand, fully flexible demand‐responsive feeder services (DRFSs) efficiently tailor their service to the needs of the passengers. On the other hand, traditional feeder services provide predictability and easier cost control. In this article, a semi‐flexible DRFS is considered, which combines positive characteristics of both traditional services as well as fully flexible services. This feeder service has two types of bus stops: mandatory bus stops and optional bus stops. Mandatory bus stops are guaranteed to be visited by a bus within a certain time interval. Optional stops are only visited when there is demand for transportation nearby. The performance of this feeder service is optimized with the use of a new type of metaheuristic framework, which we denote as parameter space search. Experimental results on small benchmark instances indicate that the heuristic performs on average 12.42% better than LocalSolver, a commercial optimization solver, with an average runtime of 2.1 s. Larger instances can also be solved, typically within 2 min. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes sexual themes in two major works by William Inge, a Kansas playwright and closeted homosexual noted for his sympathetic portrayals of lonely, frustrated women. More specifically, it focuses on the highly differentiated descriptions of male and female characters in Come Back, Little Sheba and Bus Stop, as well as the portrayal of male-male relationships in the latter. Both plays (along with Picnic and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs) were among the remarkable string of Broadway successes enjoyed by Inge during the 1950s. Although Inge's sexuality is not directly mentioned in any of his major plays, there are subtle references to it in these two, at least, especially in the lavish attention shown by Inge to male bodies in the stage directions of both, and the surprisingly tender relationship between the cowboys Bo and Virgil in Bus Stop. Before beginning our analysis of sexual themes in these plays, we shall examine the more forthright treatment of homosexuality in some of Inge's minor works, including several one-act plays and the two novels he wrote towards the end of his life. Inge has been unjustly overlooked in critical and theatrical circles since his death in 1973, and it is hoped that the greater interest being shown today in LGBTQ+ artists may lead to a revival of interest in his work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Transportation, access to follow-up care, and association with weight loss are understudied in the bariatric population. The objective of this study was to determine how transportation variables associate with postoperative attendance and weight loss through 24 months. Materials and Methods: Seven hundred eighty-seven patients (81.3% female; 59.1% White) who had primary surgery (48.6% gastric bypass) from 2015 to 2019 were included. Sidewalk coverage and number of bus stops from patients' homes, driving distance in miles and minutes from patients' homes to the nearest bus stop and the clinic were measured. Bivariate analyses were conducted with the transportation variables and attendance and %TWL at 2 or 3, 6, 12, and 24 months. One mixed multilevel model was conducted with dependent variable %TWL over 24 months with visits as the between-subjects factor and covariates: race, insurance, surgical procedure, and driving distance to the clinic in minutes, attendance, and %TWL over 24 months; an interaction between distance, attendance, and visits. Results: There were no significant differences between the majority of the transportation variables and postoperative attendance or %TWL. Patients who had perfect attendance had improved %TWL at 12 months [t(534)=−1.92, p=0.056] and 24 months [t(393)=−2.69, p=0.008] compared to those who missed at least one appointment. Patients with perfect attendance and who had shorter driving times (under 20 min) to the clinic had greater weight loss through 24 months [F(10, 1607.50)=2.19, p=0.016)]. Conclusions: Overall, transportation factors were not associated with attendance and weight loss, with the exception of the interaction between shorter driving minutes to follow-up and perfect attendance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]