Future Transp., Volume 3, Issue 4 (December 2023) – 14 articles

The transportation sector contributes significantly to global warming, as well as to urban fabric problems such as traffic congestion, traffic accidents, noise pollution, and air pollution. A shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources and from motorized to non-motorized modes is now considered essential to create sustainable communities. Walking is a sustainable transport mode and several studies have focused on factors affecting it, including travel behavior and sociodemographics. In this study, we conduct a systematic literature review to identify and record walking benefits, the financial incentives that encourage travelers to walk, and applications that support it. Financial incentives are found to have short-term effects, and their success depends on the level and structure of the incentives as well as the characteristics of the participants. In addition, non-financial incentives, such as improving infrastructure and pedestrian safety, or providing information and education about the benefits of walking, may also promote it as a main mode of transport. Full article

The main objective of this paper is to develop a readiness index model that can serve as an analytical tool for exploring the achievements of the electrification of transportation systems. We have applied this readiness index model to evaluate the readiness positioning of China, Norway, and Sweden towards transportation electrification. We have chosen these three countries as they represent diversity among countries adopting electric transportation system solutions. Our developed readiness index model has four key dimensions: technological readiness, political readiness, societal readiness, and economic readiness. The embeddedness of all four dimensions in one model provides a multi-perspective way of analyzing and evaluating the readiness levels of countries moving towards transforming their transportation system. Therefore, we named the model a “multidimensional readiness index”. Our main conclusions are that political processes and decisiveness are the most important factors, followed by societal needs and economic ability, with the current technology as the fourth. Without the participation of dedicated and determined political decision makers, the other three factors are challenging to obtain. Political decision makers need to facilitate economic means to support the transformation in society and affected industries to balance the economic disadvantages of the electrically powered vehicle systems until they pass the cost disadvantage turning point. The development of relevant technology is no longer the significant barrier it was at the beginning of this transformation about 20 years ago. The technology for electrically powered transportation systems and devices is widely available now, although it is continuously evolving and being improved. Associated industries cannot be expected to initiate, finance, take risks, and take the lead in this global societal transformation without clear and strong political support. Full article

This paper examines how mobility can be re-examined within four communities that face substantial transport barriers. Four case study communities facing mobility exclusion were investigated: (i) an ageing community in South Wales; (ii) a community of people with learning difficulties from across Wales; (iii) female university students in Pakistan; (iv) a deprived neighbourhood in mid-Wales. Using an illuminative evaluation, collating a variety of information from documents associated with the communities, it was identified that transport creates freedom, independence, and contributes to sense of purpose, worth, and can help create community. Barriers to public transport include inaccessibility of the first/last mile, services not running at required times, being delayed, and cancelled. Barriers to active travel include poor infrastructure. Not being able to be mobile affects health, not just with a lack of active travel but also missed health appointments and a lack of access to healthy foods. Already marginalised communities are further disadvantaged by the barriers reducing access to jobs, education, services, shops, and leisure. Communities want support to develop their knowledge into a package that actors can use to develop a solution, often citing the need for quantitative skills, however, other ways of utilising experiential knowledge might be more appropriate. Full article

Achieving net zero by 2050 requires the decarbonisation of road transport. Electrification is recognised as a market-ready solution for certain transport segments, but it still poses a considerable challenge when applied to road freight. Any consensus on the technology choice for road freight electrification has still not been established. Embedding stakeholder input in the approach to address the technology adoption challenge has proven useful in uncovering various perspectives, which can provide useful insights into managing such transitions. This review paper hence took a three-step approach where the findings from the initial step of the literature search were taken up for the second step of stakeholder validation and feedback. The third step involved an analysis of the input gathered and the subsequent literature review to arrive at the conclusions. The outcome from the stakeholder engagement suggests that any specific technology can only support the transition to electrified road freight if enabled by system changes around policy, infrastructure, user behaviour, and the societal setup A follow-up literature review validated the need for a sociotechnical approach to such transitions where system changes are involved. The review also found gaps in the literature when it comes to embedding such sociotechnical approaches to technology adoption for road freight transport. Full article

Battery health assessments are essential for roadside energy storage systems that facilitate electric transportation. This paper uses the samples from the charging and discharging data of the base station and the power station under different working conditions at different working hours and at different temperatures to demonstrate the decay of the battery health of a roadside energy storage system under different cycles. In this paper, for the first time, the predicted state-of-health values are obtained by extracting the characteristic quantities affecting the battery health based on three indicators: the internal resistance, the rate of change of voltage, and the change of temperature. Data on state of health are clustered by K-Means, GMM, K-Means++ and divided into high, medium, and low levels. Using a comparison of the three methods, GMM clustering appears to be the best at reflecting the charging and discharging capacity of the battery. Full article

Traditional techniques of monitoring roadway mobility during winter weather have relied on embedded road sensors, roadside cameras, radio reports from public safety staff, or public incident reports. However, widely available connected vehicle (CV) data provides government agencies and media with a unique opportunity to monitor the mobility impact of inclement weather events in near real-time. This study presents such a use case that analyzed over 500 billion CV records characterizing the spatial and temporal impact of a winter storm that moved across the country from 21 to 26 December 2022. The analysis covered 97,000 directional miles of interstate roadway and processed over 503 billion CV records. At the storm’s peak on 22 December at 5:26 PM Eastern Time, nearly 4800 directional miles of interstate roadway were operating under 45 mph, a widely accepted indicator of degraded interstate conditions. The study presents a methodological approach to systematically assess the mobility impact of this winter event on interstate roadways at a national and regional level. The paper then looks at a case study on Interstate 70, a 4350 directional mile route passing through ten states. Statewide comparison showed Ohio was most impacted, with 9% of mile-hours operating below 45 mph on 23 December. High-Resolution Rapid Refresh weather data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was integrated into the analysis to provide a visualization of the storm’s temporal path and severity. We believe the proposed metrics and visualizations are effective tools for communicating the severity and geographic impact of extreme weather events to broad non-technical audiences. Full article

The objectives set in the 2030 agenda gravitate towards the concept of sustainability, a concept that is closely related to the efficiency of port operations. As a direct derivative of the search for more efficient logistics and port operations, a disruption of new technologies, associated with the term ‘Smart’, is making its way with a large range of new digital applications. The logistics and port sector is also undergoing a process of transition towards this kind of operational intelligence through digitized and increasingly automated devices. In this work, an analysis of the most relevant Spanish dry ports is carried out, with the clear objective of discovering their degree of adaptation to the ideal Smart concept. This was developed through the implementation of a descriptive statistical analysis and a Delphi methodology, a battery of indicators and measurement variables that classify, in an integral and objective way, the degree of the adaptation of these ports to the concept of the ideal Smart Dry Port; in this way, we obtained a ranking of the ports. The current and future trend of this type of Smart facilities is solid and clearly points towards a greater digitalization of port processes and an openness of information, with port facilities interconnected with each other through automated processes. The analysis gives a clear picture of the adaptation to digitalization and automation of three of the largest Spanish dry ports, in which there are ongoing efforts to adapt to this concept but for which there is still a long way to go. Full article

Road traffic injuries (RTIs) are increasingly claiming lives, particularly of those living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). To evaluate the economic consequences of RTIs, their financial impact on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been investigated by several studies using road safety valuation methods. This in turn has been used to quantify the resources required for investment on appropriate countermeasures to reduce the severity and frequency of RTIs. To investigate the frequency of use of road safety valuation methods in assessing the economic impact of road injuries, a robust systematic review was carried out with the aid of EPPI-reviewer software. The analysis of the evidence gathered showed that 55% of the included studies used the willingness-to-pay (WTP) method, 29% used human capital (HC), 11% used restitution cost and 5% used other methods. In high-income countries (HICs), the predominant method used was WTP, while HC was more common for middle-income countries. In addition, it was found that 49% of the studies in this field were conducted on HICs, whilst 4% focused on low-income countries (LICs). This indicates that there is a gap in the use of road safety valuation methods for LICs in the literature and therefore a need for further research. Full article

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is an innovative urban mobility concept that aims to provide a competitive alternative to the use of private cars, by integrating various transportation services. Until today, limited MaaS schemes have been implemented and, in most cases, without succeeding to justify the hype. For achieving the goals of MaaS it is essential to capture holistically the expectations and barriers, as perceived by both the end-users and the various involved stakeholders. This paper aims to bridge this gap, by conducting two surveys in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece; the first survey targeted local authorities, organizations and mobility providers, while the second survey focused on (potential) end-users. The responses of stakeholders were analyzed through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, in order to identify the importance of barriers and expectations. On the other hand, the responses of end-users were analyzed statistically and two ordered logit models were developed for identifying the characteristics of those that are more likely to adopt MaaS. The results of the analyses indicate that there is a loop between MaaS and private car usage; on the one hand, the dominance of private cars hinders the adoption of MaaS, but on the other hand, MaaS can be a “tool” for encountering car domination. The results also enhance the idea that public transport is an essential component of MaaS. Full article

This study aims to present the meaningful implications of introducing a tramway as a new mode of transportation in the Daejeon Metropolitan Area, a major metropolitan area in South Korea. An efficiency comparison by data envelopment analysis (DEA) was carried out, using variables selected from the 2021 Public Transportation Investigation by the Korea Transportation Safety Authority (KTSA) (2021), and the ‘Guidelines for selecting new transportation means’ announced by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport in 2021. As a result, the efficiency of public transportation in major metropolitan areas outside of the capital region was higher than in the capital metropolitan area. In particular, the Daejeon Metropolitan Area ranked high in efficiency compared to other major metropolitan areas with similar conditions. In the V-super efficiency results of the efficiency model based on the input of operational costs for each new mode of transportation, considering variable returns to scale (VRS), the bus rapid transit (BRT) ranked first, the tramway second, and the bimodal tram third. Regarding construction cost input, the tramway ranked first, the bimodal tram second, and BRT third. Full article

According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the number of runway incursions is increasing. Over the last two decades, the number of runway incursions at U.S. airports has increased from 987 in 2002 to 25,036 in 2020. Runway incursions are a major threat to aviation safety, causing major delays and financial consequences for airlines, as well as injury or death through incidents such as aircraft collisions. The FAA promotes the implementation of runway safety technology, infrastructure, procedural methods, alterations to airport layouts, and training practices to reduce the frequency of runway incursions. In this paper, the relationship between airport geometry factors, mitigating technologies, and the number of runway incursions at large hub airports in the United States was investigated using a random effects Poisson model for analyses of panel data. Airport operations data from the FAA Air Traffic Activity System, runway incursion data from the FAA Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing System from 2002 to 2020, and airport geometry data created using airport geometry features from the FAA airport diagrams were collected. Thirty large hub airports with FAA-installed mitigating technologies were investigated. The model identified significant variables that correlate with runway incursions for large hub airport categories defined by the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS). The model results indicate that airports with significant numbers of runway-to-runway intersection points increase runway incursion rates and mitigating technologies Runway Status Lights (RWSLs) and Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X), can help reduce runway incursions at severity levels A and B. Full article

To investigate differences in the safety behaviours of distracted and non-distracted pedestrians crossing roads, an unobtrusive observational study was conducted in Leicestershire, UK. Video recordings were taken of 1409 pedestrians crossing roads at controlled and uncontrolled crossing sites, both on a university campus and in urbanised town centre locations. On average, 42% of pedestrians were visibly distracted while crossing, and distracted pedestrians demonstrated significantly fewer safety behaviours than non-distracted pedestrians. They generally took longer to cross the road and made fewer looks towards the traffic environment, particularly at controlled crossings. Of all distraction activities, talking to another pedestrian had the most negative impact on safety behaviours. The findings highlight areas requiring further investigation, including distraction behaviours such as engaging with other pedestrians and supervising children. The results also identify that controlled crossings may benefit from targeted interventions to improve pedestrian safety. Full article

Automated traffic signal performance measures (ATSPMs) have garnered significant attention for their ability to collect and evaluate real-time and historical data at signalized intersections. ATSPM data are widely utilized by traffic engineers, planners, and researchers in various application scenarios. In working with ATSPM data in Utah, it was discovered that five types of ATSPM data anomalies (data switching, data shifting, data missing under 6 months, data missing over 6 months, and irregular curves) were present in the data. To address the data issues, this paper presents a method that enables transportation agencies to automatically detect data anomalies in their ATSPM datasets. The proposed method utilizes the moving average and standard deviation of a moving window to calculate the z-score for traffic volume data points at each timestamp. Anomalies are flagged when the z-score exceeds 2, which is based on the data falling within two standard deviations of the mean. The results demonstrate that this method effectively identifies anomalies within ATSPM systems, thereby enhancing the usability of data for engineers, planners, and all ATSPM users. By employing this method, transportation agencies can improve the efficiency of their ATSPM systems, leading to more accurate and reliable data for analysis. Full article

The concept of traffic shock waves was first theorized by Lighthill and Whitham in 1955. The identification of shock wave type and speed in a traffic stream provides critical information about the queue formation and its dissipation. This information can be utilized by various stakeholders for traffic management, emergency response, etc. Such information can also be integrated into the travel time prediction models and real-time route diversions for navigation. Past efforts at identifying shock waves used simulation or analysis based on location-based sensors such as loop detectors. This paper describes scalable methodologies for measuring shock wave propagation using Connected Vehicle (CV) data. The techniques to identify the six different types of shock waves are illustrated through case studies from Indiana highways that use both CV data and the corresponding surveillance camera images. The shock wave speeds for each event are estimated using the linear regression model, with most shock wave speed estimates having a coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.9 or better. Although shock wave speeds vary by traffic flow rates and geometry, the typical backward forming shock wave speeds ranged from 1.75 to 11.76 mph whereas the backward recovery shock wave speeds were observed to be between 5.78 and 16.54 mph. These techniques can be adapted for real-time use to assist traffic management centers with estimating upstream propagation and recovery time. A case study with a car fire is used to illustrate how this shock wave speed data can be used to frame discussions with first responders regarding how reducing incident clearance time can reduce the risk of secondary crashes. Full article