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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Transportation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2023) | Viewed by 24472

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Vincenzo Gallelli

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil Engineering, University of Calabria, Arcavacata Campus, 87036 Rende, Italy
Interests: transportation modeling; sustainable mobility; transportation planning; ITS mobility management; traffic simulation; road pavement surface performances; sustainable road materials; road safety; traffic microsimulation; surrogate safety indicators; road geometric design and performance analysis of roundabouts
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Rosolino Vaiana

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil Engineering, University of Calabria, Arcavacata Campus, 87036 Rende, Italy
Interests: road pavement surface performances; bituminous materials; recycled and sustainable road materials; sustainable mobility; road safety and driver behavior; traffic microsimulation; geometric design and performance analysis of roundabouts; surrogate safety indicators
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The role of transport in sustainable development is fundamental to enhancing economic growth and improving accessibility. Sustainable transport achieves better integration of the economy while respecting the environment and improving social equity and resilience in cities. There is an urgent need for important transformations that will accelerate the transition to sustainable transport, especially in urban areas. The COVID-19 pandemic has further impeded the already slow progress reached in recent years, especially as climate change has continued inexorably. Scientific advances and the rapid development of new technologies are essential for the transition to sustainable transport: environmentally friendly fuels and engines, artificial intelligence technology, big data analysis, autonomous vehicles, and intelligent transport systems have become decisive features of the transport innovation landscape.

Therefore, the aim of this Special Issue is to focus attention on new challenges for sustainable transportation and urban traffic, focusing on how to use intelligent transport systems and IoT applications to improve transportation systems especially in urban areas.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

IoT sensing, applications, and technologies for smart sustainable cities;
The use of new devices to evaluate traffic congestion and traffic emission and improve traffic sustainability;
Intelligent Transport Systems for urban smart mobility;
New forms of sustainable transport after the restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have lifted;
New traffic-calming systems to improve safety of vulnerable road users in urban areas;
Pedestrians’ and cyclists’ influences on the traffic flow parameters and road safety;
The effect of autonomous vehicles technology in transport safety and the driving behaviors;
Big data applications to sustainable transport and traffic control modeling;
Artificial intelligence systems to assist traffic control network managers in planning, monitoring, and managing;
Systems to improve the level of vulnerability of urban intersections.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Vincenzo Gallelli
Prof. Dr. Rosolino Vaiana
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

sustainable road transport
traffic flow modeling
Smart Cities
autonomous vehicles
artificial intelligence
big data analysis
intelligent transportation systems
fuel consumption and emissions
safety of vulnerable road users
urban intersections

Published Papers (12 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 312 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Electric Scooter Collection Problem: A Case Study in the City of Vienna

by Belma Turan and Tina Wakolbinger

Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 10058; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310058 - 25 Jun 2023

Viewed by 1986

Abstract

The urban population has been growing rapidly, especially in the European Union. The trend of urbanization has led to an increased demand for mobility, through both passenger and goods transportation. One of latest trends in passenger transportation is electric scooters, which have been offered under a framework of shared mobility since 2017. This paper addresses an optimization problem emerging from the process of collecting e-scooters from the streets of Vienna during the night. One of the major planning issues for rental companies is the uncertainty of service times, i.e., the time needed to locate and load the e-scooters onto the vans. We formulated the e-scooter collection problem as an extension of the vehicle routing problem with the goal of minimizing the number of vans needed to collect the scooters and the distance traveled by vans, as well as penalizing belated collection. We proposed a solution method based on a large neighborhood search and solved problem instances generated based on real-world data. We then evaluated the impact of the service time uncertainty on the total system costs through a scenario analysis. Furthermore, we proposed a dynamic re-optimization policy that made use of real-time information on service times. We showed that the dynamic policy outperformed the static policy by 4–17% and could lead to reductions in delays of 49–54%, depending on the standard deviation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

20 pages, 1925 KiB

Open AccessArticle

LCA of Different Construction Choices for a Double-Track Railway Line for Sustainability Evaluations

by Clara Celauro, Andrea Cardella and Marco Guerrieri

Sustainability 2023, 15(6), 5066; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15065066 - 13 Mar 2023

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1867

Abstract

The international commitment to achieve carbon neutrality in the next few decades has oriented human activities towards the preservation of natural and non-renewable resources. In this context, a great research effort has been devoted to the search for sustainable solutions for the infrastructure construction sector, based on a thorough assessment of the environmental impact (EI). In this regards, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is considered one of the main components of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and, for a comprehensive analysis, all the costs incurred by stakeholders during the useful life of the infrastructure should also be taken into account, applying the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) methodology. So far, there is a lack of combined LCA and LCC analyses of railway projects to support a proper sustainable decision-making process at a project level. Therefore, this study aimed to contributed to this topic by determining the environmental effect and related costs of different planning and construction choices in terms of material and maintenance strategies. For this purpose, first, an LCA of typical railway infrastructures with a ballasted track was developed. The case study considered two different functional units of a double-track railway line: 1 km of embankment section and 1 km of a cut section, in straight alignment. After defining five alternative railway infrastructure scenarios with different materials (virgin or recycled material) and construction methods (e.g., lime stabilization), two different railway track maintenance approaches were analysed. SimaPro was used to analyse the case study, and the results were compared with those obtained using the PaLATE software, suitably adapted for use in the railway sector. Finally, a cost analysis was carried out using Life Cycle Cost (LCC) methodology for all the scenarios analysed. The results obtained in terms of EI and related costs of each scenario provide useful information, allowing a sustainable planning approach: as a general result, the initial construction phase always involves the larger part of the total environmental impact while the material production is the most polluting phase, reaching percentages always higher than 50% of the total. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

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17 pages, 3204 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Methods for Measuring and Assessing Irregularities of Stone Pavements—Part II

by Giuseppe Cantisani, Salvatore Bruno, Antonio D’Andrea, Giuseppe Loprencipe, Paola Di Mascio and Laura Moretti

Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3715; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043715 - 17 Feb 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2370

Abstract

This two-part manuscript presents a comprehensive methodology for the irregularity assessment of urban stone pavements. The proper road surface assessment using key performance indicators is necessary to plan appropriate maintenance strategies. However, there are no monitoring methods or evaluation criteria for stone pavements whose surfaces are more uneven than traditional ones due to their structural characteristics. Therefore, it is useful to define criteria for assessing irregularities considering the comfort experienced by road users and classify their conditions. This second part presents the geometric and comfort analyses of 40 urban branch profiles to describe pavement unevenness. In particular, four methods have been investigated: the International Roughness Index (IRI) according to ASTM E1926, the surface profile classification according to ISO 8608, the comfort index (a_wz) according to ISO 2631, and the straightedge analysis for stone pavements (SASP) proposed by the authors that is able to evaluate the effect of localized irregularities, taking into account different urban vehicles. In conclusion, four classes have been defined to describe geometric and comfort conditions that can support road manager decisions in order to implement an effective pavement management system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

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21 pages, 4589 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Numerical and Economic Analysis of Hydronic-Heated Anti-Icing Solutions on Underground Park Driveways

by Nurullah Kayaci and Baris Burak Kanbur

Sustainability 2023, 15(3), 2564; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032564 - 31 Jan 2023

Viewed by 1276

Abstract

Snow and ice forming on the entrance and exit driveways of underground car parks of buildings brings serious difficulties and risks in safe parking for vehicles in winter. Even though traditional methods such as chemical salt and snow plowing reduce slippery conditions on driveways, they also result in infrastructure- and environment-related damages. Hydronic heating is an alternative way to prevent snow and ice forming; thereby, the hydronic heating driveway (HHD) is a promising technique for energy-efficient and environment-friendly solutions. This study presents a time-dependent three-dimensional numerical heat transfer model for HHD applications with realistic boundary conditions and meteorological data in the MATLAB environment. After developing the numerical heat transfer model, the model is applied to a case study in Istanbul, Turkey and followed by an economic comparison with the commercial electrically-heated driveways (EHD) method that is applied in two different ways; applying the electric cables in (i) whole driveway and (ii) only tire tracks. Different escalation rates in natural gas and electricity, hot fluid inlet temperature, air temperature, and the number of parallel pipes are the main parameters in the case study. Results show that the decrease in pipe spacing drops the investment cost term but it needs a higher supplied fluid temperature for anti-icing, and therefore the operating cost term increases. Among other cases was the number of parallel pipes, with 50 being the most economically feasible solution for all air temperatures ranging from 0 °C to −10 °C. The economic comparison shows that the EHD with only tire tracks has the minimum total cost as it significantly decreased both the operating and investment cost terms. In case of an anti-icing requirement on the whole road surface, the HHD system was found to be preferable to the EHD whole driveway scenario at air temperatures of 0 °C and −5 °C, while it is more beneficial only for the high electricity escalation rates at the ambient temperature of −10 °C. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

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21 pages, 4915 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Methods for Measuring and Assessing Irregularities of Stone Pavements—Part I

by Giuseppe Loprencipe, Salvatore Bruno, Giuseppe Cantisani, Antonio D’Andrea, Paola Di Mascio and Laura Moretti

Sustainability 2023, 15(2), 1528; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021528 - 12 Jan 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1166

Abstract

Stone pavements are the historical, architectural, and cultural heritage of lots of cities in Italy and the world. Road managers should be able to make decisions on the global conditions to define the most suitable strategies and maintenance interventions for every type of pavement. There are no standard monitoring methods or criteria for evaluating stone pavement performance. These pavements have more uneven surfaces than traditional pavements, but this characteristic could be accepted if type of vehicles and relative travel conditions are considered. Therefore, it is useful to define criteria for assessing roughness considering the comfort experienced by users in different vehicles. In this research, both traditional and innovative methodologies for assessing irregularities have been investigated using true stone surface profiles. In this regard, traditional performance indicators such as the International Roughness Index (IRI) defined by the ASTM E1926, the ISO 8608 classification, and the frequency-weighted vertical acceleration (a_wz) provided by ISO 2631-1 for comfort assessment have been considered. In the case of comfort assessment, three dynamic vehicle models (bike, automobile, and bus) have been adopted. Finally, this two-part paper also proposes an innovative straightedge analysis for stone pavements (SASP) to evaluate the effect on traffic of both pavement profile roughness and localized irregularities. In this way, the authors aim to provide an effective tool to monitor stone pavements. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

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13 pages, 3153 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Role of ADAS While Driving in Complex Road Contexts: Support or Overload for Drivers?

by Gaetano Bosurgi, Orazio Pellegrino, Alessia Ruggeri and Giuseppe Sollazzo

Sustainability 2023, 15(2), 1334; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021334 - 10 Jan 2023

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1104

Abstract

The possibility of using some warnings inside modern vehicles should be an aid to driving activity. However, the information transferred to users is not always received in the expected way due to the variability and complexity of the road environment. This study, therefore, aims to identify a procedure that allows to ascertain whether drivers receive the data in an appropriate way even during particular maneuvers, such as passing cyclists on a winding road or, on the contrary, if they represent an unnecessary overload. To answer this question, an experimentation in a simulated environment was set up for recording the drivers’ visual behavior in both the presence and absence of a driving aid device (On-Board Unit, OBU). The results show that, in some situations, the information provided by the OBU helps to maintain a more virtuous driving behavior but, in the most complex ones, drivers acquire information from a smaller number of sources, excluding the aid devices inside the cockpit. This procedure is useful for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) designers to refine these instruments, but also for road managers who can improve safety by inserting appropriate signs or speed limits. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

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21 pages, 5906 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Statistical Simulation Model for the Analysis of the Traffic Flow Reliability and the Probabilistic Assessment of the Circulation Quality on a Freeway Segment

by Andrea Pompigna and Raffaele Mauro

Sustainability 2022, 14(23), 16019; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142316019 - 30 Nov 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1373

Abstract

Measuring the traffic quality and congestion level is fundamental in highway engineering, and several decades of studies and research have pursued this specific objective, especially for freeways. Nowadays, smart technologies on personal devices and information shared by users have made available various online information platforms that provide dynamic representations of the use of the road network. If, on the one hand, these tools provide a simple and direct representation of the quality of circulation, on the other hand, their aggregated information is only partial for those dealing with traffic and highway engineering. This branch of engineering relies on multidimensional knowledge of traffic flow phenomena, and only through their in-depth knowledge, we can assess traffic quality and congestion risk. After identifying the different approaches for analyzing in quantitative terms the traffic quality on the freeway, the paper deepens the reliability approach. From this point of view, the paper aims to unite the two perspectives in the literature, namely, the probabilistic analysis of traffic instability with the characterization of speed random processes and the analysis of breakdowns with the survival analysis. For this purpose, the work outlines a procedure based on the estimation and simulation of ARIMA models for speed random processes in a freeway section, particularly on the leftmost lane, to assess the traffic reliability function. Applying the Product Limit Method to the Monte Carlo simulation results makes it possible to obtain probabilistic assessments of congestion, considering the Level of Service density limits defined in the Highway Capacity Manual. Its application to a case study makes it possible to illustrate the application of the method, which can be easily applied to historical and near-real-time data using a continuous flow of information. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

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27 pages, 13200 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Urban Regeneration and Soft Mobility: The Case Study of the Rimini Canal Port in Italy

by Rachele Corticelli, Margherita Pazzini, Cecilia Mazzoli, Claudio Lantieri, Annarita Ferrante and Valeria Vignali

Sustainability 2022, 14(21), 14529; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142114529 - 04 Nov 2022

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3039

Abstract

The increasing need to reduce emissions and the environmental impact of urban areas to meet European decarbonisation goals motivates the selection of the Rimini Canal Port as a case study within the FRAMESPORT project, part of the European Interreg Italy–Croatia programme. A preliminary historical–documental and urban regulations analysis of the context allowed the identification of the main criticalities and potentials through a SWOT analysis. The central role of the stakeholders enabled the creation of a successful participatory co-design process developed through online surveys. Critical issues that emerged during the data collection phase were prioritised through a BOCR model, a powerful multi-criteria analysis tool. The project phase then focused on the resolution of the two main critical issues that emerged: the improvement of cycle/pedestrian paths, and the raising of the flooding docks in the Canal Port area. This article intends to demonstrate the strong influence of soft mobility in urban regeneration projects, and how an improvement of the quality of cycle/pedestrian paths can increase the quality of urban spaces. The new paths create a green infrastructure that contributes to a reduction in pollutant emissions through the promotion of sustainable mobility systems and an increase in green urban spaces. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

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52 pages, 1277 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Towards Safe and Sustainable Autonomous Vehicles Using Environmentally-Friendly Criticality Metrics

by Sorin Liviu Jurj, Tino Werner, Dominik Grundt, Willem Hagemann and Eike Möhlmann

Sustainability 2022, 14(12), 6988; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14126988 - 07 Jun 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2248 | Correction

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of several criticality metrics used for evaluating the safety of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) and also proposes environmentally friendly metrics with the scope of facilitating their selection by future researchers who want to evaluate both the safety and environmental impact of AVs. Regarding this, first, we investigate whether existing criticality metrics are applicable as a reward component in Reinforcement Learning (RL), which is a popular learning framework for training autonomous systems. Second, we propose environmentally friendly metrics that take into consideration the environmental impact by measuring the CO₂ emissions of traditional vehicles as well as measuring the motor power used by electric vehicles. Third, we discuss the usefulness of using criticality metrics for Artificial Intelligence (AI) training. Finally, we apply a selected number of criticality metrics as RL reward component in a simple simulated car-following scenario. More exactly, we applied them together in an RL task, with the objective of learning a policy for following a lead vehicle that suddenly stops at two different opportunities. As demonstrated by our experimental results, this work serves as an example for the research community of applying metrics both as reward components in RL and as measures of the safety and environmental impact of AVs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

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Review

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16 pages, 1293 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceReview

Sustainable Transportation for Events: A Systematic Review

by Dario Ballarano, Sergio Maria Patella and Francesco Asdrubali

Sustainability 2022, 14(23), 15815; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142315815 - 28 Nov 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2922

Abstract

Event business is constantly growing in frequency and size, attracting people from nearby areas and different countries as well. Transportation plays a key role in a successful event, especially for major ones, where the large number of participants requires ad hoc designing of event mobility and might include implementation of new infrastructures. In recent decades, environmental issues have emphasized event negative externalities, leading to the design of green events. This paper presents a comprehensive systematic literature review on studies investigating the sustainable practices related to event mobility. The methodology showcases a selection of 32 articles, which were classified according to their main contributions into five categories, for which gaps and trends were shown. Our findings indicate that there are not enough studies to draw conclusions about good practices that can be generalized to each kind of event. Additionally, strong limitations in the reviewed papers are the different contexts of the analysis and the lack of a validation through empirical data. The research presented in this paper adds a contribution to the sustainable event transportation literature reporting the most established models, methods, and interventions. In detail, the most promising interventions involve mass transit and demand-oriented services that rely on intelligent transportation systems and user information. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

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19 pages, 1372 KiB

Open AccessReview

Policy Driven Compact Cities: Toward Clarifying the Effect of Compact Cities on Carbon Emissions

by Tianhui Fan and Andrew Chapman

Sustainability 2022, 14(19), 12634; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912634 - 04 Oct 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2997

Abstract

Compact cities, characterized by high density and accessibility with fully developed inner-city public transport, are widely discussed and practiced around the world in response to the challenges of sustainable development and global warming. On this basis, we are committed to answering the question of how cities with varying urban growth rates adopt different policy practices, and whether these practices contribute to achieving the goal of building a sustainable, low-carbon city. Specifically, this study assesses the theoretical evidence and practical experiences on the effect of compact city characteristics and policies on urban CO₂ emissions using a focused literature review and representative case studies. The results illustrate that public transportation is often strengthened in compact city policies and the density and spatial configuration of cities has a significant impact on urban carbon emissions. Moreover, there are significant differences within the impact mechanisms of compact cities on carbon emissions between small-medium-sized cities (dealing with aging populations and resource waste) and megacities (dealing with excessive urban sprawl). However, there is still insufficient quantitative evidence on the effectiveness of compact city policies and this review provides insights into future compact city planning toward policy approaches which yield lower carbon emissions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

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Other

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27 pages, 604 KiB

Open AccessCorrection

Correction: Jurj et al. Towards Safe and Sustainable Autonomous Vehicles Using Environmentally-Friendly Criticality Metrics. Sustainability 2022, 14, 6988

by Sorin Liviu Jurj, Tino Werner, Dominik Grundt, Willem Hagemann and Eike Möhlmann

Sustainability 2023, 15(10), 7791; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15107791 - 10 May 2023

Viewed by 703

Abstract

The authors would like to make the following corrections to a published paper [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Sustainable Transportation and Urban Traffic)

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