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1 – 10 of 23Purpose – Intersections are hazardous locations and to improve their safety we need to understand the factors contributing to crashes at these locations and provide evidence-based…
Abstract
Purpose – Intersections are hazardous locations and to improve their safety we need to understand the factors contributing to crashes at these locations and provide evidence-based recommendations to reduce them. This chapter provides a summary of the findings on infrastructure-related factors contributing to crashes at urban and rural intersections and some discussions on the implications and potential countermeasures.
Approach – A review of the literature on intersection crashes was performed to identify the infrastructure-related crash-contributing factors. Some discussions on the implications and potential countermeasures are then provided.
Findings – The factors contributing to road crashes are diverse and complex. While the safety effects of a few factors (e.g., exposure and speed) are relatively consistent, many factors have different impacts on crash frequency and severity (e.g., types of intersection) and different impacts on urban and rural intersections (e.g., bus stops).
Research Implications – More studies are needed on developing a stronger theoretical or conceptual foundation on the effects of roadway designs and traffic controls on different dimensions of safety (e.g., exposure, frequency, severity, etc.), types of crashes (e.g., head-on, rear-end, etc.) or road users involved (e.g., drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, etc.).
Practical Implications – Transport engineers need to be aware that some treatments may have different effects on different crash types and road users involved. Even though the overall safety may be improved by the treatments designed, they need to consider and mitigate any unintended consequences to satisfy the Pareto improvement principle and the social equity criterion.
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Amber Strong Makaiau, Karen Ragoonaden, Jessica Ching-Sze Wang and Lu Leng
This chapter explores how four culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse colleagues use self-study methodologies and online journaling to systematically examine…
Abstract
This chapter explores how four culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse colleagues use self-study methodologies and online journaling to systematically examine inquiry-based teaching and learning in international contexts. Respectively from the USA, Canada, Taiwan, and China, the main research question is, “How can we develop an inquiry stance in our similarly diverse teacher candidates?” For five months, they explore the question with one another in an interactive online journal. The analysis of their written journal reflections result in four main themes: (1) naming and framing inquiry and context, (2) perspectives on translating theory to practice, (3) common practices for developing inquiry stance, and (4) policy work. The chapter concludes with a list of recommendations for fostering inquiry-based teaching and learning with culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse teacher candidates. Self-study research methodologies, Philosophy for Children, and online journaling are also suggested as professional development models for diverse globalized teacher educators.
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Since the late 1980s, the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform, alongside the anti-asylum movement, has promoted a change in the way of treating people with mental suffering in the…
Abstract
Since the late 1980s, the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform, alongside the anti-asylum movement, has promoted a change in the way of treating people with mental suffering in the country. This process produced transformations in the flows and forms in which individuals with mental illnesses use the city, intending to make the city itself less unequal.
Taking into account that accessibility measures must consider individual, temporal, transportation and land-use elements as relevant, this study will focus on the relation between mobility and access, looking at subjects who were submitted to prolonged psychiatric hospitalisation and got discharged to live in the Residential Therapeutic Services – RTS, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In order to do that, the study used focus groups, observation, shadowing and in-depth interviews as methodologies strategies.
The results of the study demonstrate that: (a) there are a variety of ways of accessing the city; (b) displacements outside the facilities are characterised by the proximity of the destinations and by being made, mostly, on foot; (c) there is a restriction regarding the use of public transport system; and (d) access to money is a determinant factor for the accomplishment of mobility practices in city spaces. However, it is also observed that the mobility and access to the city can exert an effect of autonomy by allowing governance of the subjects’ own time and destination.
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Ernest Effah Ameyaw and Albert P. C. Chan
Allocating risk in public–private partnership (PPP) projects based on public–private parties’ risk management (RM) capabilities is a condition for success of these projects. In…
Abstract
Allocating risk in public–private partnership (PPP) projects based on public–private parties’ risk management (RM) capabilities is a condition for success of these projects. In practice, however, risks are allocated to these parties beyond their respective RM capabilities. Too much risk is often assigned to the private or public party, resulting in poor RM and costly contract renegotiations and terminations. This chapter proposes a methodology based on fuzzy set theory (FST) in which decision makers (DMs) use linguistic variables to assess and calculate RM capability values of public–private parties for risk events and to arrive at risk allocation (RA) decisions. The proposed methodology is based on integrating RA decision criteria, the Delphi method and the fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) technique. The application of FSE allows for the introduction of linguistic variables that express DMs’ evaluations of RM capabilities. This provides a means to deal with the problems of qualitative, multi-criteria analysis, subjectivity and uncertainty that characterise decision-making in the construction domain. The methodology is outlined and demonstrated based on empirical data collected through a three-round Delphi survey. The public–private parties’ RM capability values for land acquisition risk are calculated using the proposed methodology. The methodology is helpful for performing fuzzy-based analysis in PPP projects, even in the event of limited or no data. This chapter makes the contribution of presenting a RA decision-making methodology that is easy to understand and use in PPP contracting and that enables DMs to track calculations of RM capability values.
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Joshua A. Basseches, Kaitlyn Rubinstein and Sarah M. Kulaga
At a time when the US federal government failed to act on climate change, California's success as a subnational climate policy leader has been widely celebrated. However…
Abstract
At a time when the US federal government failed to act on climate change, California's success as a subnational climate policy leader has been widely celebrated. However, California's landmark climate law drove a wedge between two segments of the state's environmental community. On one side was a coalition of “market-oriented” environmental social movement organizations (SMOs), who allied with private corporations to advance market-friendly climate policy. On the other side was a coalition of “justice-oriented” environmental SMOs, who viewed capitalist markets as the problem and sought climate policy that would mitigate the uneven distribution of environmental harms within the state. The social movement literature is not well equipped to understand this case, in which coalitional politics helped one environmental social movement succeed in its policy objectives at the expense of another. In this chapter, we draw on legislative and regulatory texts, archival material, and interviews with relevant political actors to compare the policymaking influence of each of these coalitions, and we argue that the composition of the two coalitions is the key to understanding why one was more successful than the other. At the same time, we point out the justice-oriented coalition's growing power, as market-oriented SMOs seek to preserve their legitimacy.
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Ana Marcela Ardila Pinto, Marcos Fontoura De Oliveira, Bruna Barradas Cordeiro and Laíse Lorene Hasz Souza e Oliveira
Since the 1990s, several policy instruments have been produced in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, to improve accessibility to urban mobility systems, especially for people with…
Abstract
Since the 1990s, several policy instruments have been produced in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, to improve accessibility to urban mobility systems, especially for people with disabilities. However, the city still faces important shortcomings in understanding the demands of the population with disabilities and in implementing an appropriate urban structure. The present work identifies mobility practices and demands for accessibility of this population based on a descriptive analysis of the city’s origin/destination survey (2012) and results of a focus group with representatives of the population with disabilities and public authorities. The analysis demonstrates that the demands of persons with reduced mobility are characterised first by a high level of immobility, comparing to people without disabilities, which has important consequences on access to urban goods, especially jobs and health and educational services. Second, mobility has a relevant role in producing forms of discrimination and exclusion. Third, in addition to the problems faced by the general population, people with reduced mobility also face greater challenges in using transport systems. Ultimately, this analysis points out that the main needs for people with disabilities are related to the problems of articulation between public places and transportation systems, both in terms of infrastructure and in terms of attitude and behaviour of service providers and other citizens.
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