KEYWORDS navigation systems; liveability; transport planning; Flanders
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
•The use of commercial navigation systems leads to undesired through traffic • Adjustments to road infrastructure may help materialising the road categorisation system • Implementing policy guidelines in navigation systems can raise liveability standards
ABSTRACTVehicle route planning and navigation systems aim to provide the most beneficial routes to their users while disregarding the impact on the liveability of the surrounding residential areas. Therefore, future integration of route choice behaviour by route planners and measures to improve liveability and safety standards should be pursued. The Spatial Plan for Flanders, which is the overarching spatial policy plan in the northern part of Belgium, 2 determines a system of road categories aimed at optimising the liveability of sensitive areas, such as residential neighbourhoods or school precincts, without jeopardizing accessibility.This paper examines to what extent routes proposed by commercial route planners differ from more socially desirable routes that are guided by the policy principles of road categorisation in Flanders as proposed by the plan. Results show that commercial route-planners' routes choose more often roads of the lowest category than socially acceptable. However, for some of the assessed connections, the socially desired alternative is a feasible route as well, which is not excessively increasing time consumption or distance travelled. It is concluded that the implementation of the prevailing road categorisation system in Flanders in routing algorithms has the potential to promote more sustainable route choices, while infrastructural measures that discourage cut-through traffic may help materialising the categorisation system.
ABSTRACT.
The spatial interaction between rural and urban areas is intense in the Global South. While research into how this interaction influences livelihood opportunities is extensive, longitudinal identification and analysis of rural people's long‐distance mobility is rudimentary. This is problematic given the possible repercussions of a greater flow of people for transport system management (congestion, emissions, investments, social exclusion, etc.). Based on longitudinal survey data from 1990 to 2008/2009, this article addresses this gap by exploring how the long‐distance mobility behaviour of households and individuals has changed over a period of intensified rural–urban interaction in a rural Philippine area. The article furthermore addresses the individuals' mobility desires and restrictions related to long‐distance travel. The results indicate that both accessibility effects and effects related to information and communication technology (ICT), concentration of activities and opportunities towards major cities, age, labour market, and economic situation. Over time, particularly since improved accessibility conditions have enabled much faster travelling, more people have come to travel more frequently (although a suppressed demand is still present and inequalities are considerable) to more distant destinations, major cities in particular, for mainly social motives. A recent countertrend is evident, partly arising from mobile phones replacing physical movement. The increase in private vehicle ownership has so far been slow, so modal choice is still highly sustainable. Overall, the findings support core ideas derived from the new economic geography, but also notes, with earlier studies in transport geography, that travel time is a prime consideration.
Common methods to collect data on women's labour force participation frequently result in under-reporting and under-recording of their work. Based on fieldwork in Malaysia's Penang state, this article presents some of the difficulties associated with recording women's informal work. It contributes to theorization on the under-reporting of women's remunerative activities in official surveys by arguing that while women's work is often devalued, under-reporting may also be the result of women making strategic and pragmatic choices. By reporting themselves as "housewives", for example, they may avoid questioning their society's gendered norms while securing their own interests in work outside the home.under-reported by the women themselves. Previous studies have indeed abundantly emphasized how cultural norms shape the perception that women's work is less important or less appropriate to report (Anker, 1983; Bardasi et al., 2010;Benería, 1999;Mata Greenwood, 1999). The objective here is not to argue with such findings, but rather to propose that although such "devaluation" of work is important, under-reporting may also result from women's deliberate choice not to report their remunerative activities for what we have called "pragmatic reasons", i.e. reasons motivated by practical or realistic objectives, such as avoiding the loss of benefits (Franck, 2012). In order to examine the (overt and covert) reasons why women refrain from reporting their labour, we propose an approach that focuses on women's agency.The field work for this study was conducted in Malaysia, where female labour force participation increased dramatically during the 1970s and 1990s but stagnated or even declined thereafter. By 2008, women's participation rate was 45.7 per cent -the lowest in the Association
This paper investigates how efforts to achieve local economic growth conflicted with long-term sustainable resource use when road accessibility was improved between a supply area -the households and household firms in a Philippine fishing village, Dinahican, previously hampered by very poor transport conditions and accessibility -and its major market. Findings indicate that improved road access to big fish markets stimulated investment in production enhancing inputs, which allowed increased fish landings and sales outside Dinahican, together with employment and incomes. At the same time, poorly implemented fisheries resource management resulted in overfishing in municipal waters and obvious disparities in access to productive resources. Thus, while road investment in relatively inaccessible rural resource rich areas may spur economic development as an underutilized production potential is released, it can facilitate resource depletion and intensify an unequal distribution of benefits if the enforcement of laws and regulations is lacking. In the case of Dinahican, coordination between infrastructure supply and the implementation and enforcement of fisheries resource management is found to be urgently needed.
Abstract. Swedish national transport policy treats freight transport as a major facilitator of economic development at all geographical levels. It is simultaneously noted that methods and data for business location and transportation are inadequate for following up transport policy objectives. This paper reports on a pilot study of the potential to develop accessibility measures to support and follow up policy objectives in the Swedish context. The accessibility concept and its practical application in concrete measures are discussed and problematized. Several practical examples from Västra Götaland County are used as illustrations. In terms of results, the study identifies several potentials and limitations of using accessibility measures to address freight transport issues. These measures' usefulness is driven mainly by the integration capability of transport and land use. This permits more complex questions and measures, supporting the integration between planning specializations. Limitations largely concern data availability and quality and the extent to which maps and measures can be communicated to non-experts. The concluding discussion highlights how the policy and governance context is central to understanding how best to utilize the potential strengths of the accessibility concept and related measures.
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