The sustained increase in the urban population and the trend towards urban sprawl in European cities has led to a change in mobility patterns, and many public transport users now need to combine several modes or transport services at urban transport interchanges before they reach their final destination. Therefore, they have become an everyday experience for users where, in addition, users spend time inside. This paper aims to identify the key factors both from a functional and psychological perspective for defining an efficient transport interchange. Since the users' perceptions of their experience are particularly important for achieving the most appropriate policy measures for interchanges, an ad-hoc travellers' satisfaction survey was designed and carried out in three European transport interchanges. The assessment methodology used here-Principal Component Analysis-is proposed as a useful step-by-step procedure. The results of this research highlight the ambivalent nature of the urban transport interchanges. The key functional aspects identified contribute to make easier the transfer and reduce the waiting time, while the psychological factors make the stay more comfortable for users.
Global demand for mobility is increasing and the environmental impact of transport has become an important issue in transportation network planning and decisionmaking, as well as in the operational management phase. Suitable methods are required to assess emissions and fuel consumption reduction strategies that seek to improve energy efficiency and furthering decarbonization. This study describes the development and application of an improved modeling framework -the HERA (Highway EneRgy Assessment) methodology -that enables to assess the energy and carbon footprint of different highways and traffic flow scenarios and their comparison. HERA incorporates an average speed consumption model adjusted with a correction factor which takes into account the road gradient. It provides a more comprehensive method for estimating the footprint of particular highway segments under specific traffic conditions. It includes the application of the methodology to the Spanish highway network to validate it. Finally, a case study shows the benefits from using this methodology and how to integrate the objective of carbon footprint reductions into highway design, operation and scenario comparison.
One of the main problems in urban areas is the steady growth in car ownership and traffic levels. Therefore, the challenge of sustainability is focused on a shift of the demand for mobility from cars to collective means of transport. For this purpose, buses are a key element of the public transport systems. In this respect Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI) systems help people change their travel behaviour towards more sustainable transport modes.
This paper provides an assessment methodology which evaluates how RTPI systems improve the quality of bus services performance in two European cities, Madrid and Bremerhaven. In the case of Madrid, bus punctuality has increased by 3%. Regarding the travellers perception, Madrid raised its quality of service by 6% while Bremerhaven increased by 13%. On the other hand, the users´ perception of Public Transport (PT) image increased by 14%.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.