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1 – 10 of 753Seyed Mehdi Zahraei, Jude Herijadi Kurniawan and Lynette Cheah
The transportation system in any city is complex and evolving, shaped by various driving forces and uncertainties in the social, economic, technological, political and…
Abstract
Purpose
The transportation system in any city is complex and evolving, shaped by various driving forces and uncertainties in the social, economic, technological, political and environmental situations. Its development and demands upon it cannot be projected by simply extrapolating past and current trends. This paper aims to present a foresight study examining the future of urban mobility, focusing on the dense Asian city-state of Singapore. The objective is to develop scenarios for the future of urban mobility, to facilitate future policy implementation by highlighting long term challenges and opportunities for transportation planning in cities.
Design/methodology/approach
To create future scenarios, the authors first sought to identify key drivers of change through environmental scanning, expert interviews, focus group discussions and technology scanning. These drivers of change were subsequently used in a scenario planning workshop, organized to co-create alternative future visions for urban mobility 2040 with experts and local stakeholders.
Findings
Two scenarios emerged, called the Shared World and the Virtual World. For each scenario, the authors described the key features in terms of dominant transport modes for the movements of passengers and freight. Subsequently, the authors discussed possible implications of each scenario to the individual, society, industry and government.
Originality/value
As cities grow and develop, city and transport planners should not only address daily operational issues but also develop a well-informed, long-term understanding of the evolving mobility system to address challenges that lie beyond the five- or even ten-year horizon. By using scenario planning approach, the authors hope to prepare stakeholders for the uncertain futures that are continuously shaped by the decisions today.
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Anna Torres-Delgado, Francisco López Palomeque, Josep Ivars-Baidal and Fernando Vera-Rebollo
This study aims to identify the challenges faced by urban destinations in Spain in the current transitional stage towards a new reality of tourism, caused by the outbreak of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to identify the challenges faced by urban destinations in Spain in the current transitional stage towards a new reality of tourism, caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 and the ongoing global changes in the tourism industry.
Design/methodology/approach
An extensive literature review and an analysis of current debates were conducted to identify the different factors that have influenced the recent tourism phenomenon and the development of destinations on a global, regional-national and local-urban scale.
Findings
Four main challenges are identified, including the new mobility patterns of the population; information and communication technologies and the digitalisation process in urban and tourism management; sustainability, as a factor of the competitiveness, stability and viability of urban destinations; and governance in urban destinations.
Originality/value
The study’s findings provide valuable insights for urban destination managers to make informed decisions and adapt to the new reality of tourism.
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Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge and Yongkuk Jeong
This research analyses challenges faced by users at various levels in planning and designing participatory simulation models of cities. It aims to identify issues that hinder…
Abstract
Purpose
This research analyses challenges faced by users at various levels in planning and designing participatory simulation models of cities. It aims to identify issues that hinder experts from maximising the effectiveness of the SUMO tool. Additionally, evaluating current methods highlights their strengths and weaknesses, facilitating the use of participatory simulation advantages to address these issues. Finally, the presented case studies illustrate the diversity of user groups and emphasise the need for further development of blueprints.
Design/methodology/approach
In this research, action research was used to assess and improve a step-by-step guideline. The guideline's conceptual design is based on stakeholder analysis results from those involved in developing urban logistics scenarios and feedback from potential users. A two-round process of application and refinement was conducted to evaluate and enhance the guideline's initial version.
Findings
The guidelines still demand an advanced skill level in simulation modelling, rendering them less effective for the intended audience. However, they have proven beneficial in a simulation course for students, emphasising the importance of developing accurate conceptual models and the need for careful implementation.
Originality/value
This paper introduces a step-by-step guideline designed to tackle challenges in modelling urban logistics scenarios using SUMO simulation software. The guideline's effectiveness was tested and enhanced through experiments involving diverse groups of students, varying in their experience with simulation modelling. This approach demonstrates the guideline's applicability and adaptability across different skill levels.
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Pirouz Nourian, Samaneh Rezvani, Kotryna Valeckaite and Sevil Sariyildiz
The most sustainable forms of urban mobility are walking and cycling. These modes of transportation are the most environmental friendly, the most economically viable and the most…
Abstract
Purpose
The most sustainable forms of urban mobility are walking and cycling. These modes of transportation are the most environmental friendly, the most economically viable and the most socially inclusive and engaging modes of urban transportation. To measure and compare the effectiveness of alternative pedestrianization or cycling infrastructure plans, the authors need to measure the potential flows of pedestrians and cyclists. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have developed a computational methodology to predict walking and cycling flows and local centrality of streets, given a road centerline network and occupancy or population density data attributed to building plots.
Findings
The authors show the functionality of this model in a hypothetical grid network and a simulated setting in a real town. In addition, the authors show how this model can be validated using crowd-sensed data on human mobility trails. This methodology can be used in assessing sustainable urban mobility plans.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this paper is the generalization and adaptation of two network centrality models and a trip-distribution model for studying walking and cycling mobility.
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This paper aims to test two hypotheses related to the supposedly negative impact of rent control on residential mobility: the mobility of renters is, first, negatively related to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to test two hypotheses related to the supposedly negative impact of rent control on residential mobility: the mobility of renters is, first, negatively related to how attractive their residential areas are and, second, relatively high for renters living in properties built after 2005.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper estimates logit and multinomial logit regressions and models household moves. The multinomial logit regressions separate between short- and long-distance moves and between moves to rentals and to owned dwellings. This paper uses the “relative income” of the tenants’ residential areas to proxy area attractiveness. This paper estimates regressions for entire Sweden and the three largest “commuting” regions and municipalities, respectively.
Findings
The full sample provides support of both hypotheses in all regressions. Hypothesis one gets stronger support for moves to other rentals than moves to owned dwellings but about equally strong support for short- and long-distance moves. Hypothesis one obtains strongest support in Gothenburg municipality while hypothesis two obtains strongest support in the Malmö region. Also, hypothesis two obtains stronger support for short-distance moves than long-distance moves and slightly stronger support for moves to owned dwellings than those to rented dwellings.
Research limitations/implications
This paper does not estimate “how much” rent control affects mobility, and results cannot be used to design specific rent setting policies. Results may be sensitive to how different types of moves are defined.
Practical implications
Efforts to reform rent setting policies in Sweden are encouraged.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper’s two hypotheses are not tested before in Sweden and can be tested without control groups.
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XiYue Deng, Xiaoming Li, Zhenzhen Chen, Mengli Zhu, Naixue Xiong and Li Shen
Human group behavior is the driving force behind many complex social and economic phenomena. Few studies have integrated multi-dimensional travel patterns and city interest points…
Abstract
Purpose
Human group behavior is the driving force behind many complex social and economic phenomena. Few studies have integrated multi-dimensional travel patterns and city interest points to construct urban security risk indicators. This paper combines traffic data and urban alarm data to analyze the safe travel characteristics of the urban population. The research results are helpful to explore the diversity of human group behavior, grasp the temporal and spatial laws and reveal regional security risks. It provides a reference for optimizing resource deployment and group intelligence analysis in emergency management.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the dynamics index of group behavior, this paper mines the data of large shared bikes and ride-hailing in a big city of China. We integrate the urban interest points and travel dynamic characteristics, construct the urban traffic safety index based on alarm behavior and further calculate the urban safety index.
Findings
This study found significant differences in the travel power index among ride-sharing users. There is a positive correlation between user shared bike trips and the power-law bimodal phenomenon in the logarithmic coordinate system. It is closely related to the urban public security index.
Originality/value
Based on group-shared dynamic index integrated alarm, we innovatively constructed an urban public safety index and analyzed the correlation of travel alarm behavior. The research results fully reveal the internal mechanism of the group behavior safety index and provide a valuable supplement for the police intelligence analysis.
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Kasim Randeree and Nadeem Ahmed
The purpose of this paper is to examine social sustainability effectiveness of eco-cities through the case of Masdar City’s strategy for urban sustainability in Abu Dhabi, United…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine social sustainability effectiveness of eco-cities through the case of Masdar City’s strategy for urban sustainability in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a case study approach, the paper is an exploratory, qualitative analysis, which investigates the social, environmental and economic performance of Masdar City, a purported carbon-neutral, zero-waste urban development.
Findings
Though Masdar City substantively contributes to innovation in sustainable urban development within environmental and economic contexts and has been effective in capital circulation in green technology markets, the impetus as a commercially driven enterprise is most evident. Successful sustainable urban development requires greater consideration for the social imperative.
Practical implications
Eco-city mega-projects, such as Masdar City, have the potential to fuse achievements in innovation, technology and economic enterprise with the social imperative of functional urban habitats.
Originality/value
Eco-cities are of increasing interest given the growing need for sustainable, energy-efficient living. This paper contributes through a novel case study, exploring how the concept of the eco-city has been developed and understood in the Masdar City context and discusses successes and deficits in its strategic implementation.
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Fiammetta Brandajs and Antonio Paolo Russo
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a critical framework to analyse how “smart” plays out in tourism places. Moving from a recognition of the strategies, expected impacts…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a critical framework to analyse how “smart” plays out in tourism places. Moving from a recognition of the strategies, expected impacts and imageries of Smart City, the authors engage with the mobilities literature to identify pitfalls in the quest of “smartening up” cities for hypermobile populations.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a set of geoanalytical techniques to establish the potential relationship between the territorial upgrade of mobility and the socio-economic change processes the city of Barcelona is experiencing.
Findings
The paper suggests the effect of “smart” in cities could indeed be one of economic recovery; however, one triggering fundamental transformation of the social fabric of the city, whose most evident facet is the creation of globalised functional enclaves that may be forcefields of exclusion for the most vulnerable populations.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to a new stream of critical research on “smart” with a strong focus on the power of mobilities and mobility systems, whose digital enhancement plays out as a leveraging agent of new place connections and negotiations for short-term populations, but at the same time, may exclude disadvantaged subjects in their capacity to access and afford the system network.
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Poverty alleviation has been a major theme of China's modernization process since the founding of New China. This paper points out that China's poverty alleviation process…
Abstract
Purpose
Poverty alleviation has been a major theme of China's modernization process since the founding of New China. This paper points out that China's poverty alleviation process presents three stylized facts: “Miraculous” achievements of poverty alleviation have been made on a global scale; the poverty alleviation achievements mainly occurred in the high growth stage after reform and opening up; the poverty alleviation process is accompanied by the structural transformation of the urban–rural dual economy.
Design/methodology/approach
Therefore, a logically consistent analytical framework should form among the structural transformation of the dual economy, economic growth and the achievements in poverty alleviation. In logical deduction, the structural transformation of the dual economy affects rural poverty alleviation through the effects of labor reallocation, agricultural productivity improvement, demographic change and fiscal resource allocation.
Findings
The first two refer to economic growth, and the latter two are alleviation policies. The combination of economic growth and poverty alleviation policies is the main cause for poverty alleviation performance. China's empirical evidence can support the four effects by which the structural transformation of the dual economy affects poverty alleviation.
Originality/value
China's socialist system and its economic system transformation after reform and opening up provide an institutional basis for the effects to come into play. After 2020, China's poverty alleviation strategies will enter the “second-half” phase, namely, the phase of solving the problems of relative poverty in urban and rural areas by adopting conventional methods and establishing long-term mechanisms. This requires the facilitation of the reconnection between poverty alleviation strategies and the structural transformation of the dual economy in terms of development ideas and policy directions.
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