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The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how COVID-19 lockdowns in the USA impacted traffic safety.

The authors explored the role of vehicle, user and built environment factors on traffic fatalities in the USA, comparing results during COVID-19 lockdowns (March 19th through April 30th, 2020) to results for the same time period during the five preceding years. The authors accomplished this through proportional comparisons and negative binomial regression models.

While traffic levels were 30%–50% below normal during the COVID-19 lockdowns, all traffic fatalities decreased by 18.3%, pedestrian fatalities decreased by 19.0% and bicyclist fatalities increased by 3.6%. Fatal COVID-19 crashes were more likely single-vehicle crashes involving fixed objects or rollovers. COVID-19 traffic fatalities were most common on arterial roadways and in lower density suburban built environments. Findings suggest the importance of vulnerable road users, speed management and holistic built environment policy when pursuing safety on the streets.

The findings have road safety implications not only for future pandemics and other similar events where we would expect decreases in motor vehicle volumes (such as natural disasters and economic downturns) but also for cities that are pursuing mode shift away from personal automobiles and toward alternative modes of transportation.

This paper aims to investigate actor roles and public–private interactions in networks. Role dynamics are explored in two settings: the current development network and the future implementation network to which actors are transitioning.

The paper builds on the industrial marketing and purchasing approach to business markets and uses a qualitative methodology. A case study of a network developing geofencing applications in the context of sustainable transport was used. The main source of data was interviews with 26 respondents from public and private organizations.

Roles in development and implementation of geofencing are identified, where private and public actors may take on one or several roles in the developing setting. When transitioning to the implementation setting, the expectations of public actors vary and there is ambiguity over their roles, which range from active to inactive. This detailed empirical case study shows the complexity of multi-actor involvement when developing digital technology for the transport system.

The study highlights the transition from firm-centric innovation to network-centric innovation and its implications on actor roles.

Organizations participating in public–private innovation networks need to be aware of the multiple roles public organizations play and the complexities they face.

The paper explores role dynamics within and between the development and implementation settings of geofencing. Within the current development setting, roles are identified at different organizational levels with limited change in role dynamics. When transitioning to a new setting, actors’ role dynamics may range from “limited” to “path-breaking.” In future settings, actors enter and exit networks and their roles may change dramatically.

The maintainability of urban spaces has become critical with rapid urbanization to create an effective and safe environment for the increasing population. The absence of scientific studies exploring the factors that affect urban space maintainability (USM) has hindered the incorporation of maintainability aspects during the urban space planning and designing stages. This paper aims to establish critical factors for USM.

Qualitative content analysis is performed under an abductive approach to developing USM factors. A bibliometric search is conducted using databases including Scopus Elsevier, Emerald Insight, Science Direct, IEEE XPLORE and the American Society of Civil Engineers. The selected primary data set comprises journal papers on USM published after 2000. Seventy-three journal articles are selected through a comprehensive screening procedure and subjected to further analysis. The literature findings are processed via a software-assisted systematic coding and visualizing of the key data using NVivo 12 software. The coded USM factors are validated based on experts’ consensus statements by conducting an expert focus group discussion.

Twelve critical factors are established for USM; they include six design stage-related factors, one construction stage-related factor and five operational stage-related factors.

Established USM factors give an insight into the main focus areas when incorporating maintainability into urban spaces.

The authors establish a set of maintainability factors for urban spaces based on the life cycle stages. USM factors such as vegetation management, interdepartmental coordination and work zone safety draw attention to context-specific aspects of USM.

Safety, one of the basic human needs for existence, is a very important factor in achieving a successful urban space. A lack of its presence could make it challenging for residents of a place to live and function effectively. Therefore, this study aims to identify the urban design attributes that would potentially enhance the perceived sense of safety, mainly focusing on two case studies in El-Sherouk neighborhood in Cairo. The two selected case studies are considered car-oriented due to their reduced levels of safety.

This study was conducted through a set of data collection phases from field surveys and survey questionnaires that infer the influence of the surrounding urban environment on a specific target group. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) statistical analysis tool was used to analyze data collected from survey questionnaires.

Finally, by the end of this research, a set of urban design qualities vital for achieving the desired levels of safety were introduced. The findings of this study revealed key urban design qualities that can potentially contribute to enhancing the perceived sense of safety as they showed a strong positive correlation: (1) imageability, (2) transparency, (3) complexity and (4) human scale and enclosure. Moreover, multiple linear regression indicates that urban design qualities are strong predictors of perceived safety.

This study presents a holistic approach to studying the relationship between urban design and perceived safety by examining two case studies located in El-Sherouk City in Cairo, Egypt. While previous research has focused on one theory of safety design such as crime prevention, defensible space theory, eyes on the street or safer city centers, this article tries to fill in the gap in the literature by analyzing all aspects of urban design and its correlation to an enhanced perceived safety. In addition, most of the previous studies have tackled the safety aspects of old urban settlements. However, this study tackles a new urban settlement.

The aim of this study is to propose a governance model and key performance indicators on how policymakers can contribute to a more accessible, inclusive and sustainable mobility within and across smart cities to examine sustainable urban mobility grounded on the rational management of public transportation infrastructure.

This study employed desk research methodology grounded on secondary data from existing documents and previous research to develop a sustainable mobility governance model that explores key factors that influence future urban policy development. The collected secondary data was descriptively analyzed to provide initiatives and elements needed to achieve sustainable mobility services in smart cities.

Findings from this study provide evidence on how cities can benefit from the application of data from different sources to provide value-added services to promote integrated and sustainable mobility. Additionally, findings from this study discuss the role of smart mobility for sustainable services and the application for data-driven initiatives toward sustainable smart cities to enhance mobility interconnectivity, accessibility and multimodality. Findings from this study identify technical and non-technical factors that impact the sustainable mobility transition.

Practically, this study advocates for the use of smart mobility and data-driven services in smart cities to improve commuters' behavior aimed at long-term behavior change toward sustainable mobility by creating awareness on the society and supporting policymakers for informed decisions. Implications from this study provide information that supports policymakers and municipalities to implement data-driven mobility services.

This study provides implications toward behavioral change of individuals to adopt a more sustainable mode of travels, increase citizens’ quality of life, improve economic viability of business involved in providing mobility-related services and support decision-making for municipalities and policymakers during urban planning and design by incorporating the sustainability dimension into their present and future developments.

This paper explores how urban transportation can greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provides implications for cities to improve accessibility and sustainability of public transportation, while simultaneously promoting the adoption of more environmentally friendly means of mobility within and across cities. Besides, this study provides a detailed discussion focusing on the potential opportunities and challenges faced in urban environment in achieving sustainable mobility. The governance model developed in this study can also be utilized by technology startups and transportation companies to assess the factors that they need to put in place or improve for the provision of sustainable mobility services.

Talking about smart cities also entails talking about new ways of mobility. Various concepts compete for reimagining future mobility, most prominently connected cars, robo taxis, and other forms of shared mobility. New digital technologies, changing customer requirements, but also new competitors are dynamically affecting previous market logics. To stay future-proof in this new world of mobility, the automotive sector, which is an important nucleus for developing such mobility solutions, is currently undergoing fundamental digital transformation processes. Established car manufacturers have to find their path to choose out of the many possibilities on the rise. Against this backdrop, they face the major challenge to find an answer to the question: Who are we and who do we want to be in the future? Therefore, we argue that organizations’ digital transformation is highly entangled with questions on organizational identity and discuss digital transformation as a potential identity threat for established organizations.

We begin this chapter by introducing the concept of organizational identity. Afterward, we will continue with applying it to the practical context of car manufacturers: After depicting the major trends of digitalization in the mobility and automotive sector, we will focus on the digital transformation processes of established automotive companies and discuss their impact on organizational identity. Empirical illustrations of the Volkswagen case depict our theoretical considerations.

We provide theoretical ideas for better understanding the impact of digital transformation on organizational identity, as well as suggestions for practitioners concerned with organizations’ digital transformation processes.

The noise and dust particles caused by the construction transport are by most stakeholders experienced as disturbing. The purpose of this study is to explore how sonification can support visualization in construction planning to decrease construction transport disturbances.

This paper presents an interdisciplinary research project, combining research on construction logistics, internet of things and sonification. First, a data recording device, including sound, particle, temperature and humidity sensors, was implemented and deployed in a development project. Second, the collected data were used in a sonification design, which was, third, evaluated with potential users.

The results showed that the low-cost sensors used could capture “good enough” data, and that the use of sonification for representing these data is interesting and a possible useful tool in urban and construction transport planning.

There is a need to further evolve the sonification design and better communicate the aim of the sounds used to potential users. Further testing is also needed.

This study introduces new ideas of how to support visualization with sonification planning the construction work and its impact on the vicinity of the site. Currently, urban planning and construction planning focus on visualizing the final result, with little focus on how to handle disturbances during the construction process.

Showing the potentials of using low-cost sensor data in sonification, and using sonification together with visualization, is the result of a novel interdisciplinary research area combination.

A considerable amount of police evaluation research focuses on innovative approaches to reduce crime at places. This is hardly coincidental; policing and place-based scholars have found crime is highly concentrated, and when police focus on these places, they can prevent and reduce crime. The regularity of such findings led Weisburd (2015) to assert the existence of a “law of crime concentration.” Given that bold assertion, the authors test whether the law of crime concentration is generalizable to one of the most common public safety concerns that police handle—traffic crashes.

To determine whether the law of crime concentration applies to traffic crashes, the authors examined crash locations and times in all counties in Utah across four years. Following and expanding on Weisburd's methods, the authors calculate the bandwidth of concentration for these crashes and analyze various types by severity and possible explanations for variations in crash concentrations across the state.

A small proportion of street segments and intersections experience a disproportionately high number of crashes, and the degree of concentration of crashes may be even higher than that of crime. Further, there are variations in the levels of crash concentration across counties and in the severity of injuries resulting from the crashes.

Place-based criminologists and policing scholars have not often explored traffic crashes in their analyses. Yet, traffic problems take up a significant amount of law enforcement time and resources and are often priorities for most law enforcement agencies. Given what the authors know from traffic, policing and crime and place research, targeted approaches at micro traffic crash hot spots can be beneficial for public safety prevention.

This study is the first to explore the application of Weisburd's Law of Crime Concentration to traffic crashes. Given that police spend a significant amount of time and resources on traffic-related problems in their jurisdiction, finding more effective, evidence-based approaches to address this public safety concern should be a high priority for police and researchers alike.

With the ever-growing population in the urban areas, the concept of smart cities started to be more present in the literature. Smart cities are seen as a solution that will respond to the needs of providing a sustainable place for living, and at the same time improving residents’ lives. To achieve this, various information and communication technologies (ICTs) are exploited, making the digitalization in the modern world of an immense importance. Advanced digital technologies enable the transformation of existing and the creation of new business models, the development of new products and services, increase the efficiency and competitiveness of the economy, and contribute to wider socio-economic development. Digitization of society and the economy through innovative and intensive use of ICTs has great potential for growth and is the basis for further development and competitiveness. This all generates an enormous amounts of data sets from which useful information are generated and used again the decision support systems. This chapter presents two examples from Slovenia where big data is used for improving residents’ lives, as part of the strategies for smart cities.

The recent pandemic of Covid-19 has substantially changed people’s daily lives. They work and interact even more based on information and communication technologies (ICT). The use of new technologies and the interconnectivity specific to smart cities have intensified in the context of the pandemic. A significant part of the population works from home, participates in concerts and other remote social activities, organizes online parties, communicates virtually with friends and family, etc. These transformations required an extended and more stable infrastructure, significant investments in the development of software applications dedicated to remote activities (streaming, contact tracing, security, online ordering and delivery, telemedicine, etc.), in specific services (data storage and applications, electronic signature services, etc.) and the integration of subsystems used in smart cities. This chapter examines the role of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in the acceleration of digital transformations in smart cities due to the need and desire to digitize communities and public administrations. It has become a top priority for both private and public companies from smart cities in the context created by the pandemic.