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Light Rail Transit (LRT) systems have emerged as an attractive form of public transport both in industrialised as well as developing countries. This paper reviews the implementation mechanism of LRT projects proured by private finance, through Build Operate Transfer (BOT) type concession contracts. A case study approach is used to model an actual LRT project. The case study analysis shows that the uncertainty factor could be converted to monetary terms and the process would enhance ability of the decision makers to have a better understanding of the consequences of risks.

The background and an overall review of the implementation of the Rio de Janeiro Rapid Transit System – Metro – with its implications in the structure of the transport system within the metropolitan area and in its urban development is provided. Emphasis is given to the social role played by the Metro lines in terms of reducing the travel costs and travelling time of the working population. As such it is also a major political issue which will affect federal and state governments′ priorities and resources allocation.

MISS ANNE SHAW's presence on the platform at the annual general meeting of the Management Consultants Association was a solid assurance that work study still lies within its scope. The initial impression was weakened, however, when the chairman, Mr. D. J. Nicolson, mentioned that the bulk of consultancy work was no longer concerned with work study. Instead, it gave more than half its attention to policymaking and the broad aspects of organising financial, manufacturing and marketing resources.

All over the world, millions of people live in buildings and neighbourhoods that follow the principles of Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and Le Corbusier: high-rise “residential machines” in parks reminiscent of green seas. Some of these have become very successful living environments, but in Europe and the USA, several neighbourhoods featuring this architectural design dream have become a social nightmare. Residents who were able to moved to more desirable neighbourhoods. This led to a high level of vacancy and crime and fear of crime have flourished, resulting in a stigma that is often long-lasting and difficult to repair. The pupose of this study is to learn from these experiences.

In this paper, two high-rise neighbourhoods, built in a Corbusier-like fashion and situated on the outskirts of major cities, are put under the evaluation spotlight: Bijlmermeer: located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with an abundance of landscaping, shrubbery, green fields and one high-density neighbourhood; and Bellvitge: located in Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain, looking less like a park and more like a city with open-air parking on ground level, and many small shops, bars and restaurants.

Both neighbourhoods faced enormous problems from crime, incivilities, disorder and drug abuse. Fear of crime and feelings of insecurity were high. Both governments reacted by investing huge sums of money. In Bellvitge, the investment was mainly in public transport, the public domain and new approaches in policing while keeping the high-rise buildings intact. In Bijlmermeer, a large regeneration project supported the demolition of two-thirds of all apartments and the neighbourhood was rebuilt in a low-rise fashion.

This paper outlines the history of both neighbourhoods and describes the solutions that were implemented. Important lessons can be learned regarding current high-rise neighbourhoods and about the learning capacity of urban designers and planners regarding urban management.

The paper suggests that urban planners, designers and managers are slow in learning from earlier mistakes. The hypothesis is that there is no clear method available to evaluate new urban planning designs by incorporating lessons from the success or failure of previous cases. This paper focuses on density, ownership and design to identify possible approaches to evaluate new high-rise estate plans.

The Western high-rise “wave” has faded away but nowadays has become a high-rise “tsunami” in Asia. Learning from European experience may be beneficial.

The contribution of the public–private partnership (PPP) model towards the achievement of the United Nation (UN)'s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been widely acknowledged. However, limited studies have shed light on the connection between PPPs and the achievement of these coveted goals in Ghana. In this study, the authors aimed at analysing and synthesising the existing literature on the use of PPP to achieve sustainability in infrastructure projects in the country.

A three-step approach was used to retrieve and review 60 selected articles aided by content analysis.

The analysis showed that all existing relevant publications on the application of the PPP model to attain UN’s SDGs in the country are organised around dominant themes, such as poverty alleviation, urban development, waste management and risk management. However, the review revealed little studies exist on pertinent issues relating to PPPs and sustainable development goals, such as climate action, critical resilience, sustainable finance and clean energy.

Although the study is limited to 60 articles in Ghana, the results reveal pertinent gaps for further research studies to achieve sustainable infrastructural development in Ghana and other countries.

Holistically, the outcome of this study will serve as a guide to project managers to understand essential issues on attaining sustainability on public projects.

This article contributes to the literature and practice on the significance of PPP in mainstreaming UN's SDGs in public infrastructure projects.

The advent and wide use of new digital technologies suggests that the internet is becoming a powerful new media for the imagination of city space. If this is the case then issues concerning urban representation on social media platforms such as Wikipedia provide an area of overlap and interest between urban studies and information studies. The purpose of this paper is to examine the representation of Manila, Philippines, one of the world’s major mega cities, on the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The author’s broad approach to the study of Wikipedia is qualitative in nature. For this study the entire Metro Manila article was downloaded on March 16, 2015 and subjected to textual analysis.

While the Wikipedia article on Manila cannot be classified as promotional, it is clear that much of the city remains invisible in this work. Such a puzzle becomes understandable when we examine the urban studies literature where we find that the spatial logic of the city itself helps conceal much from view, so that what we read on Wikipedia is a view from the islands of privilege rather than the oceans of marginalization that make up much of the city’s spatial form. If such a spatial structure is to change, representations such as found on Wikipedia need to be challenged.

Wikipedia is a key element of today’s information infrastructure yet despite its importance it remains relatively understudied within the field of information science. More specifically, the role of Wikipedia in representing cities, the dominant settlement form in the world today, has not been previously studied.

This paper sought to uncover the intrinsic determinants of the choice of transport modes in Nigeria's capital city, Abuja, based on commuters' perceptions on different modes of transport. The ultimate goal of the study was to come up with suitable multifaceted measures to deter private car usage, while refocusing society's mind-set towards alternative forms of transport, thereby keying into some transport-related sustainable development goals (SDG) goals.

The study adopted qualitative methods: 320 commuters were surveyed at bus stops and car parks around the city, and respondents were identified using multistage sampling, aided by purposive/convenience sampling, and this number was reached by saturation of themes. Focus group discussions were held with eight screened public officials from relevant (transportation and environment related) agencies/unions in the city. NVivo 10 software was used to thematically analyse the data gathered from a relativist and an interpretive stand point.

The study found transport mode choice to be intrinsically more motivated by socio-economic forces serving as a basis for other socio-psychological factors. Multifaceted measures, including spatial, socio-economic, environmental and public relation measures, were found suitable to break car-use motives in the study area towards adopting alternative modes of transport, thereby achieving some transport-related SDG targets.

The study was unique as it looked at the intrinsic mode choice determinants from a Sub-Saharan African capital city perspective and provided suitable multifaceted best practiced measures that deemphasised car use while emphasising alternative modes, thereby shifting commuters' mind-set towards environmentally sustainable modes of transport.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent public listed construction firms in Malaysia disclose mandatory information on public private partnership (PPP) projects. This paper is important as the level of disclosure of PPP information reflects the extent of transparency as practiced by the companies involved in PPP projects.

In achieving the aim, a content analysis procedure was carried out to analyse the 2015 annual reports of the construction companies. Descriptive statistics including the mean score, frequency and percentage were employed to analyse the disclosure of the annual report.

The overall mean disclosure score of the sampled companies is 40 per cent, which connotes a low level of disclosure of mandatory information on PPP. The companies also tend to disclose more mandatory financial information than non-financial information.

This paper is one of the few studies that investigated the level of mandatory disclosure of PPP information, thus contributing to the scanty literature on PPP transparency not only in Malaysia but also internationally.

Asian cities have witnessed changes in the urban landscape and social behaviour in the past decades. As a result of a continuous transformation of urban centres, the sense of place is often subdued by a global culture and imagery that may have impacted the people’s perception and experience of the city. This paper dwells into the urbanites’ relationship with historical urban places in the context of Kuala Lumpur city, Malaysia. Based on a qualitative inquiry, this paper presents the way in which these places shape the perception, knowledge, emotion, and memory of the urbanites. Findings indicate that urbanites’ experience, role, length of association, and age provided varying reactions that defined the attachment, knowledge, and memory about the places. Place attachment was reflected in the economic and cultural dependency on the places. The cultural significance of the place was manifested in its diversity within the colonial, multi-cultural, and multi-ethnic identity. Thus, reinterpretation of culture and tradition should take into consideration the continuity of place legacy, heritage, and sociocultural values. Despite the urbanites’ strong identification and knowledge of the built heritage, preserving place identity is a challenging task due to the complexity of the physical environment and the urban life.

Attracting commuters from driving to light rail systems has a good potential for reducing carbon emissions. However, the light rail system is interrupted by disruptions frequently, which reduces its attraction to passengers. Therefore, how to provide a quick replacement service during disruptions is of vital importance to avoid passengers change to other higher emission vehicles. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the decision analysis of the replacement tool for disruption recovery service in urban public light rail systems from the perspective of environmental effect.

The traditional approach – bus replacement service – and the new approach – taxi replacement service – which has been recently adopted by several cities, are examined individually and compared. The benefit of the light rail company is formulated by balancing between carbon emission and financial cost. The involving parties’ decision functions taking the passengers’ behaviors as well as numerous other important factors into account are formulated.

Both theoretical and numerical sensitivity analyses are conducted to shed light for light rail systems to better coping with disruptions, increasing service level, and attracting more passengers to the environmental transit system to reduce carbon emission.

It is worth mentioning that this research is a successful application for disruption recovery in a public transit system considering the environmental effect. To the authors’ knowledge, this research is one of the first of such applications in this area and can be used not only in the public light rail systems, but also in other urban public transport network components such as the subway and rail systems.