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Geospatial Data and Methods for Sustainable Mobility and Urban Accessibility

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 March 2023) | Viewed by 11001

Special Issue Editors

Institute of Space and Earth Information Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Interests: geospatial data analytics; urban mobility and accessibility; environmental exposure; health geography; GIScience

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Modern society is facing the challenge of sustainable mobility. Accessibility and sustainable mobility are central to smart and healthy city development, which not only requires clean travel modes but also involves equitable, healthful, and highly accessible resources and facilities. In recent years, the application and development of new geospatial datasets and methods have provided new possibilities for studying urban mobility and accessibility to support sustainable mobility planning. Our main area of interest is the development and application of geospatial technologies and methods in addressing key issues related to the sustainable mobility and accessibility of urban spaces.

This Special Issue calls for theoretical, methodological, policy, and empirical contributions on the topic of geospatial data and methods for sustainable accessibility and urban mobility. Relevant themes include but are not limited to: geospatial data analysis in transport geography; urban mobility and urban sustainability; and the development and application of new methods, approaches, and analytical frameworks for improving urban sustainability and urban infrastructure accessibility.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Sustainable mobility;
  • Analyzing travel behavior using geospatial data;
  • Geospatial data analytics in mobility research;
  • Development and adoption of active travel modes;
  • Environmental impacts of motorized travel;
  • Urban infrastructure accessibility;
  • Transportation equalities;
  • Intelligent transport systems;
  • Human mobility;
  • Transport geography;
  • Transport planning and policy;
  • The recent COVID pandemic and spatial inequalities in mobility and accessibility.

Dr. Zihan Kan
Prof. Dr. Mei-Po Kwan
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 cities
  • urban mobility
  • accessibility
  • geospatial analysis
  • big data

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

24 pages, 10119 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Road Accessibility by Residents and Tourists to Public Hospitals in Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain)
by Alexandre Moragues, Joana Maria Seguí-Pons, Antoni Colom Fernández and Maurici Ruiz-Pérez
Sustainability 2023, 15(10), 8182; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15108182 - 17 May 2023
Viewed by 1170
Abstract
Accessibility to public hospital services is crucial for healthcare provision, particularly in regions characterized by high tourist presence, such as the Mediterranean islands. This study aims to assess the accessibility of public hospital services in Mallorca, considering access time, the geographic distribution of [...] Read more.
Accessibility to public hospital services is crucial for healthcare provision, particularly in regions characterized by high tourist presence, such as the Mediterranean islands. This study aims to assess the accessibility of public hospital services in Mallorca, considering access time, the geographic distribution of the resident population, and tourist accommodations. A GIS-based analysis using optimal routing algorithms and the Gini index was conducted to examine the equity in the distribution of regional and reference hospitals across four Health Sectors: Ponent, Migjorn, Tramuntana, and Llevant. The findings reveal that accessibility to regional hospitals is generally favorable, with average access times of 18, 16, 15, and 26 min, respectively, without surpassing 60 min. Accessibility to referral hospitals is comparatively lower, with 31,499 individuals located more than 1 h away. Moreover, 56% of the population is within 10 min from the referral hospital, and only 1.6% require more than 50 min to reach the hospital. Accessibility differs among Health Sectors, with Llevant experiencing the most significant impact. The hospital distribution in Mallorca is deemed to be adequate to serve residents, tourists, and the road network. Although limited in comparisons to other studies conducted in Spain, accessibility in Mallorca is fairly similar to Andalusia, Extremadura, and Catalonia. The study underscores the necessity for health infrastructure planning in order to account for the distribution of resident and tourist populations to ensure efficient and equitable services, particularly in Mediterranean island environments with a substantial tourist presence. Full article
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17 pages, 39123 KiB  
Article
Transit Travel Community Detection and Evolutionary Analysis: A Case Study of Shenzhen
by Jingjing Yan, Zhengdong Huang, Tianhong Zhao, Ying Zhang and Fei Chang
Sustainability 2023, 15(7), 5900; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15075900 - 28 Mar 2023
Viewed by 1090
Abstract
Community detection can reveal specific urban spatial structures related to human activities, and is achieved using mobility data from various sources. In the existing research, less attention has been devoted to communities related to urban transit travel. As public transit is a key [...] Read more.
Community detection can reveal specific urban spatial structures related to human activities, and is achieved using mobility data from various sources. In the existing research, less attention has been devoted to communities related to urban transit travel. As public transit is a key component of the urban transport system, it is important to understand how transit communities are organized and how they evolve. This research proposes an approach to urban transit travel community detection using transit travel data and examines how the communities have evolved over time. The results in Shenzhen from 2015 to 2017 showed that the transit travel network had an obvious community structure, and the components (TAZs in this case) of the communities changed over time. During the three years, the western part of Shenzhen experienced more component changes on weekdays, and the central part of the city underwent more component changes on weekdays. In addition, the transit travel communities had a significant coupling relationship with urban administrative divisions. Exploring transit travel communities provides insight for improving public transit systems and enriches the research genealogy of urban spatial structure. Full article
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25 pages, 19081 KiB  
Article
Spatial Non-Stationarity Effects of Unhealthy Food Environments and Green Spaces for Type-2 Diabetes in Toronto
by Haoxuan Ge and Jue Wang
Sustainability 2023, 15(3), 1762; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15031762 - 17 Jan 2023
Viewed by 1837
Abstract
Environmental factors may operate differently when relations are measured across different geographical locations, a phenomenon known as spatial non-stationarity. This study investigates the spatial non-stationarity effect of unhealthy food environments and green spaces on the T2DM prevalence rate at the neighborhood level in [...] Read more.
Environmental factors may operate differently when relations are measured across different geographical locations, a phenomenon known as spatial non-stationarity. This study investigates the spatial non-stationarity effect of unhealthy food environments and green spaces on the T2DM prevalence rate at the neighborhood level in Toronto. This study also compares how the results vary between age groups, classified as all adults (20 and above), young adults (from 20 to 44), middle adulthood (from 45 to 64), and seniors (65 and above). The geographically weighted regression model is utilized to explore the impacts of spatial non-stationarity effects on the research results, which may lead to biased conclusions, which have often been ignored in past studies. The results from this study reveal that environmental variables dissimilarly affect T2DM prevalence rates among different age groups and neighborhoods in Toronto after controlling for socioeconomic factors. For example, the green space density yields positive associations with diabetes prevalence rates for elder generations but negative relationships for younger age groups in twenty-two and four neighborhoods, respectively, around Toronto East. The observed associations will provide beneficial suggestions to support government and public health authorities in designing education, prevention, and intervention programs targeting different neighborhoods to control the burden of diabetes. Full article
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12 pages, 2225 KiB  
Article
Toward a Healthy Urban Living Environment: Assessing 15-Minute Green-Blue Space Accessibility
by Dong Liu, Mei-Po Kwan, Zihan Kan and Jianying Wang
Sustainability 2022, 14(24), 16914; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142416914 - 16 Dec 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2350
Abstract
Exposure to green-blue space has been shown to be associated with better physical and mental health outcomes. The advent of COVID-19 has underlined the importance for people to have access to green-blue spaces in proximity to their residences due to pandemic-related restrictions on [...] Read more.
Exposure to green-blue space has been shown to be associated with better physical and mental health outcomes. The advent of COVID-19 has underlined the importance for people to have access to green-blue spaces in proximity to their residences due to pandemic-related restrictions on activity space. The implementation of the 15-min concept, which advocates that people should be able to reach locations of essential functions like green-blue spaces within 15 min of active travel, can bring green-blue spaces nearer to where people live. Nonetheless, there is still a lack of understanding of the social and spatial (in)equality in 15-min green-blue space accessibility by active travel in cities seeking to embrace the concept, such as Hong Kong. This study explores 15-min green-blue space accessibility by walking and cycling in Hong Kong to reveal the distribution of disadvantaged neighborhoods. The results show that neighborhoods in Kowloon’s districts are the most disadvantaged in accessing green-blue spaces within 15 min of active travel. Our study provides policymakers with valuable insights and knowledge conducive to formulating policies aimed at reducing inequality in 15-min accessibility. Full article
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25 pages, 25173 KiB  
Article
Uncovering Inequalities in Food Accessibility between Koreans and Japanese in 1930s Colonial Seoul Using GIS and Open-Source Transport Analytics Tools
by Hui Jeong Ha, Jinhyung Lee, Junghwan Kim and Youngjoon Kim
Sustainability 2022, 14(19), 11852; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141911852 - 20 Sep 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1391
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the disparities and inequalities in food accessibility in colonial Seoul (Keijo [京城] in Japanese, and Gyeongseong [경성] in Korean) in the 1930s, using a geographic information system (GIS) and open-source transport analytics tools. We specifically focused on the [...] Read more.
This study aimed to investigate the disparities and inequalities in food accessibility in colonial Seoul (Keijo [京城] in Japanese, and Gyeongseong [경성] in Korean) in the 1930s, using a geographic information system (GIS) and open-source transport analytics tools. We specifically focused on the unique social standing of people in the colonial era, namely colonial rulers (Japanese) vs. subjects (Koreans) and examined whether neighborhoods with larger proportions of colonial rulers had more access to food opportunities. For a comprehensive evaluation, we computed food accessibility by multiple transport modes (e.g., public transit and walking), as well as by different time budgets (e.g., 15 min and 30 min) and considered various sets of food options—including rice, meat, seafood, general groceries, vegetables, and fruits—when measuring and comparing accessibility across neighborhoods in colonial Seoul. We took a novel digital humanities approach by synthesizing historical materials and modern, open-source transport analysis tools to compute cumulative opportunity-based accessibility measures in 1930s colonial Seoul. The results revealed that Japanese-dominant neighborhoods had higher accessibility by both public transit and walking than Korean-dominant neighborhoods. The results further suggest that inequality and disparity in food accessibility is observed not only in contemporary society but also in the 1930s, indicating a historically rooted issue. Full article
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16 pages, 2780 KiB  
Article
Spatiotemporal Evolution of Travel Pattern Using Smart Card Data
by Mu Lin, Zhengdong Huang, Tianhong Zhao, Ying Zhang and Heyi Wei
Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 9564; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159564 - 03 Aug 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1511
Abstract
Automated fare collection (AFC) systems can provide tap-in and tap-out records of passengers, allowing us to conduct a comprehensive analysis of spatiotemporal patterns for urban mobility. These temporal and spatial patterns, especially those observed over long periods, provide a better understanding of urban [...] Read more.
Automated fare collection (AFC) systems can provide tap-in and tap-out records of passengers, allowing us to conduct a comprehensive analysis of spatiotemporal patterns for urban mobility. These temporal and spatial patterns, especially those observed over long periods, provide a better understanding of urban transportation planning and community historical development. In this paper, we explored spatiotemporal evolution of travel patterns using the smart card data of subway traveling from 2011 to 2017 in Shenzhen. To this end, a Gaussian mixture model with expectation–maximization (EM) algorithm clusters the travel patterns according to the frequency characteristics of passengers’ trips. In particular, we proposed the Pareto principle to negotiate diversified evaluation criteria on model parameters. Seven typical travel patterns are obtained using the proposed algorithm. Our findings highlighted that the proportion of each pattern remains relatively stable from 2011 to 2017, but the regular commuting passengers play an increasingly important position in the passenger flow. Additionally, focusing on the busiest commuting passengers, we depicted the spatial variations over years and identified the characters in different periods. Their cross-year usage of smart cards was finally examined to understand the migration of travel patterns over years. With reference to these methods and insights, transportation planners and policymakers can intuitively understand the historical variations of passengers’ travel patterns, which lays the foundation for improving the service of the subway system. Full article
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