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The purpose of this paper is to explore the actual walking distance to public transport (PuT) stations and to report passenger perceptions on route choice.

A systematic case study has been conducted after administrating a tailor-made paper-based intercept survey in a German city (Munich). It can determine the interrelation between the accessibility of the transit service and evaluation on walking distance acceptance. Statistical analysis and geo-spatial approach were completed for obtaining major findings.

Statistical and geo-spatial analysis shows that respondents living in low-density areas walk longer than residents living in nearby inner city areas. In terms of PuT modes, residents walk longer for suburban train and subway/metro (U-Bahn) than for bus/tram services. Transit users accept a longer walking distance to reach a train station than other PuT modes and they choose the most direct and quickest route to reach PuT stations.

Findings of this study would help to formulate future strategies and standards for the sustainable planning of public transportation systems in the context of Munich and many other cities around the globe with similar conditions. However, future research should be conducted using a large-scale survey for evaluating the comprehensive picture of walking patterns to PuT stations. Accessibility to PuT stations can also be modeled and evaluated by adopting open data and voluntary social media information. Unfortunately, this study only presents a partial evaluation of walking focused on accessibility at selected PuT stations in different settings of the urban fabric.

This empirical study can be considered as an initial finding in the favor of the city transport authority to provide a design scale for improved accessibility of transit users; however, further investigation should be conducted using a large-scale survey for evaluating the comprehensive walking patterns.

A systematic case study has been conducted after administrating a tailor-made paper-based intercept survey in a German city (Munich). Findings of this study would help to formulate future strategies and standard for the sustainable planning of the public transportation system in the context of Munich and many other cities in the globe with similar conditions.

A boom in e-commerce in Korea has sparked off high daily-volume demand for small-sized home delivery services, which poses a great challenge to distribution networks, especially in urban areas where traffic congestion, accessibility, and pollution are serious problems. In addition, security issues for people who live in small townhouses and detached houses without security systems and guards have received increasing attention from the government and society. Thus, the introduction of a new alternative for home delivery services, unmanned parcel lockers, is urgent for residents living in these areas. This paper examines and compares potential socio-economic impacts in terms of costs and benefits when such lockers are installed at selected locations in residential areas. The results show that this policy is worthy of adoption, with several undeniable benefits to local communities. In addition, sensitivity analyses estimate the economic performance of this project at different social discount rates, and they check the sensitivity of economic performance based on variations in the variables. The value of travel time savings was identified as a critical and dominating factor directly affecting economic performance.

The aim of this study is to outline a practice approach towards safety in public places whereby safety and place is understood as simultaneously produced in everyday work practice. Hence, the focus is shifted from place safety as a manageable asset to safe places as ongoing accomplishments.

This study focuses on practices of enacting safe places on the municipal level in Sweden. Thus, the focus of analysis is on the meanings of safety. The empirical material was collected during the period 2017–2019 in the Swedish cities of Stockholm, Helsingborg and Malmö. In different ways, these cities struggle with navigating safety issues in public places.

The study demonstrates how urban places are enacted as safe in and through practice. The findings include some of the ways in which safe places are accomplished, such as maintaining and caring for places, countering negative rumours and news reports and forming collaboration across sectors and actors. To gain a better understanding of safety in city centres, the study illuminates competing meaning-making processes in management work practice whereby places are negotiated as safe.

The existing research on safety in public places is scattered across disciplinary fields and dominated by a fortress approach to safe places. By contrast to the top-down view of safety as a measure of control, this study generates knowledge of how safe places are continuously construed in the junction of management practices and practices of everyday life.

Archaeological sites and monuments, by their nature, do not allow major interventions to their structure, in order to abolish the obstacles that make them inaccessible. Any interventions should be made sensitively and carefully, so as not to alter the monument’s character or damage it, either visually or structurally. The project “PROSPELASIS” focused on creating a methodology for facing monuments’ accessibility and perceptibility problems for people with disabilities and testing its application at Byzantine monuments of Thessaloniki. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The creation of the proposed methodology was based on both research in relevant bibliography and the application of a form of “Delphi method” among involved actors. In this process persons specialized in accessibility and disability issues, persons with disability themselves, as well as employees of the 9th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, archaeologists and experts in monuments’ restoration, participated.

The possible sites of interest for visitors with disabilities examined amount to 20 monuments which document the evolution of Byzantine architecture and are included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List. In six major monuments (Acheiropoietos, Saint Demetrios, Saint Nicholaos Orphanos, Hagia Sofia, Rotunda, Heptapyrgion Fortress) significant accessibility improvements were realized in order to verify the methodology proposed.

A practical tool for improving monuments’ accessibility has been developed, open for use by any interested body.

The application of the methodology developed is beneficial for the promotion of the equality and non-discrimination principles.

The successful implementation of the proposed methodology and the importance that accessibility improvement of monumental sites has in the attraction of visitors with restricted mobility and perceptibility and the development of accessible tourism, constitute the results of this project not only pertinent to Thessaloniki or Greece, but worthy of a wider application.

The authors explore neuro-enhanced reality (NeR) as a novel approach for enhancing service communication between customers, frontline employees, and service organizations that extends beyond current state-of-the-art approaches based on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies.

The authors first take stock of research on reality-enhanced service communication with AR and VR, then complement these insights with emerging neuroscientific research to conceptualize how NeR enables innovative forms of service communication. On this basis, the authors develop a research agenda to guide the future study and managerial exploitation of NeR.

AR and VR already offer unique affordances for digital-to-physical communication, but these can be extended with NeR. Specifically, NeR supports neuro-to-digital and digital-to-neuro communication based on neuroimaging (e.g. controlling digital content through thought) and neurostimulation (e.g. eliciting brain responses based on digital content). This provides a basis for outlining possible applications of NeR across service settings.

The authors advance knowledge on reality-enhanced service communication with AR and VR, whilst also demonstrating how neuroscientific research can be extended from understanding brain activity to generating novel service interactions.

The study aims to promote independent mobility for persons with visual impairment or legal blindness (VIB) by developing a Web-based wayfinding application using geographic information systems (GIS). While the literature mainly focuses on technical devices presenting results for wayfinding, a lack of integration of user needs is identified. The inclusive, participative developed application offers step-by-step directions for pre-trip planning through an accessible user interface.

The paper presents a semi-automated approach to extract a pedestrian routing network data set based on open government data and field survey. User profiles calculate different routes using a weighting scheme for landmarks, orientation hints, infrastructure of crossings and sidewalks. The adoption of ArcGIS Web AppBuilder widgets allows access of the user interface additionally through keyboard-only navigation and therefore screen-reader capability.

GIS offers a powerful tool to design network analysis for persons with VIB. The routing algorithm accesses different user profiles, returning individualized turn-by-turn directions. The complex set of attributes, including shorelines, landmarks and barriers, can be integrated by semi-automated processes.

The paper illustrates the benefit of GIS applications for wayfinding of persons with VIB to raise self-determination and independence.

A ubiquitous pedestrian sidewalk network for a medium-size city comprises a novelty, as research has mainly focused on small areas. The integration of shorelines next to a various number of hints, landmarks and potential barriers through semi-automated processes allows reproducibility and transferability of the model to other cities.

As research emerged in terms of how narcissism, a negative or dark trait, has been found to be constructive in enhancing entrepreneurial behaviour, there are mixed results regarding the significance of narcissism in the field of entrepreneurship. Additionally, this previous research has mostly been conducted on student or nascent entrepreneur samples within developed economies. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore how narcissistic traits of established entrepreneurs in an emerging economy context infuence their entrepreneurial behaviour both positively and negatively.

Gioia methodology was applied in the qualitative study by means of in-depth interviews, which allowed for the unpacking of narcissistic traits among established entrepreneurs in South Africa. Four themes emerged from the data, and included insights related to entrepreneurial experience influencing behaviour; business growth linked to personal development; opportunity identification versus loss; and identity separation in relation to authentic identity versus an entrepreneurial identity.

The findings of the paper contribute to creating an understanding of how to hone individual narcissistic traits for positive influences that develop entrepreneurs while also contributing to their business development, opportunity realization and identity. In addition, the findings highlighted a separation between established entrepreneurs’ authentic personality and the inputs that end up resulting in the entrepreneurial personality.

This paper highlights the possibility of narcissism functioning as a business process involved in entrepreneurship rather than a necessary personality trait. An interesting dynamic contributed to what seems to be a constant battle between the authentic identity and the entrepreneur identity, gaining deeper insight surrounding established entrepreneurs’ experiences to survive and, more importantly, thrive as entrepreneurs.

Experimental tourism can be understood as a new trend in tourist demand. Tourists want to experiment with lifestyles in different places. The information society shows how and where the best products are cultivated and is linked to how the quality of life should be. Nowadays, we are intended to know more and better things, both tangible and intangible, and new technologies show them to us immediately. One intends to live these opportunities as soon as they can.

From the experimental point of view Olive Oil Tourism (Oleotourism) emerges from the olive oil consumer’s interest in learning about the production process, so they can discover a lifestyle associated to this product. This research begins with an exploration of tourists’ motivations. Then, focusing on these consumers, this work has different targets: first, to assess how consumers perceive intangible aspects of olive oil and, second, to forecast the potential demand for oleotourism.

The development of tourism is the result of tourist entrepreneurs that react to the pre-existing demand/opportunity by identifying it in the tourist market.

The consumer’s experience is important, but touristic trends are changing. The importance of olive oil may grow in the future because the nutrition benefits are known by all countries. The natural experience around olive oil will drive it to other stakeholders.

It is very early to recognize if the olive oil tourism industry is economically interesting, and whether innovative offers can be created based in olive oil and the lifestyle in rural areas.

The local development around olive oil tourism could be a potential complement with the principal activities, which are usually agricultural activities, farmer interests and local and historical heritage. This is a means to foresee the plausible impacts of the development of oleotourism on tourist destinations, for which oleotourism might become a competitive advantage based on an agri-food product with many intangible profits: olive oil.

This is the first opportunity to learn about the personal interest of the consumer regarding olive oil. They give us the opportunity to know if the institutional offer about new destinations based on olive oil tourism will have a chance or will it be an economic complement with the principal activities.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodology for shaping the tourist spatial identity of the city and to take advantage of it to discover alternative urban outdoor spaces. As the number of indoor visitors has been limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic, open urban areas such as streets, squares and parks have become more important tourist locations.

The assessment methodology consists of two basic steps. In the first step, the authors look for places or points that are carriers of spatial identity. For this purpose, the method of mental mapping is used. In the second step, statistical methods are used to evaluate the spatial suitability for the most common tourist activities. To obtain a holistic picture, a temporal component is included.

The application of the methodology is presented in the form of a case study. The obtained research results provide an insight into the spatial situation of the city of Maribor (Slovenia, Europe). Tourist spatial identity of a city depends on time. Based on the value of spatial sensitivity indicator and the suitability of activities, it is possible to adapt the tourist offer to the temporal component.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is an original perspective on the spatial identity of tourists. The presented approach could be integrated as a good practice in any other city worldwide. It supports the identification of suitable outdoor tourist places that are memorable, cosy, multifunctional and can be recommended by city guides (mobile or printed books). Every city has many hidden gems that tourists have yet to discover.