Edited by L Frank, P Engelke, T Schmid. Washington, DC: 2003, $30.00, pp 253. ISBN 1-55963-917-2

Sedentary behaviour is a major cause of poor health worldwide both through the direct effects of inactivity on health and indirectly via its contribution to obesity. Health and Community Design describes the role of the built environment as a potential contributor to physical inactivity …

https://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/59/3/250.3.full.pdf

Health and community design: the impact of the built environment on physical activity

Active school transportation can be a potentially important source of accumulating physical activity among children. Researchers, practitioners and community-based organizations have emphasized built environment interventions to encourage walking/cycling for school travel. Empirical research on the built environment correlates of active school travel, however, has produced somewhat inconsistent results. Some of this inconsistency may relate to the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP), i.e., the presence of scale and/or zoning effects in the measurement of neighborhood built environment characteristics. This paper is the first to investigate the potential influence of the specification of geographical units on statistical modeling of the relationship between the built environment and walking/cycling to school. Binomial logistic regressions were estimated to examine active (walk, cycle) versus passive (car, transit, school-bus) travel for trips to school, for children aged 11-12 years, in the City of Toronto, Canada. Travel data were drawn from the 2006 Transportation Tomorrow Survey. Scale and zoning effects were explored across six spatial unit specifications used to represent residence and school neighborhoods. The results were suggestive of the presence of MAUP across different geographical units. Proximity to school, smaller blocks and signalized intersections near the home location were positively associated with walking/cycling. Children were more likely to travel actively to schools located in low-income neighborhoods, and in places where other people also walked. This research improves understanding of the sensitivity of school travel behavior analyses to the spatial representation of neighborhood construct. Regarding implications for practice, design interventions related to school proximity and perceived safety may increase active school travel.

Built Environment Correlates of Active School Transportation: Neighborhood and the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem

Accessibility is one of the most important outcomes of the transportation system. Public transport can be more attractive by providing "Door to door mobility" and development of transportation services is an important factor of social quality. Public transport accessibility has gained vital importance in designing and evaluating the transit system in terms of mobility and sustainability. Apart from the transport system itself, public transport accessibility has the considerable impact on life satisfaction in the form of perceived accessibility. Moreover, researchers have revealed several impact and correlation of provision of public transport accessibility to the environment and daily life which would have a noticeable impact on public health and other aspects of public daily life. Furthermore, the correlation between public transport accessibility and job opportunities has attracted the researchers' attention in the literature. Also, public participation in social activities has been investigated based on public transport accessibility and their close connection has been revealed under the topic of social exclusion. In this paper, the available literature on public transport accessibility has been reviewed. As a conclusion, it should be highlighted that not just the performance of public transportation but its impact on other social aspects should be considered while planning the public transport facilities.

/pdf/public-transport-accessibility-a-literature-review-5g0npz5vrh.pdf

Public Transport Accessibility: A Literature Review

Based on China’s latest national railway network planning proposal, the connectivity and accessibility indices of China’s high-speed railway network (CHSRN) in different time periods are computed to evaluate the implications of high-speed rail (HSR) for Chinese cities. An overall index for measuring the connectivity-accessibility of cities on the HSR network is proposed based on three indicators: (a) the Beta index, to reflect the connectivity of the HSR, (b) the number of reachable counties by HSR within the 500-km domain of a city, to reflect the location-based accessibility of the HSR, and (c) the population of the reachable places by HSR within the 500-km domain of a city, to reflect the potential-based accessibility of the HSR. Finally, the differences in the normalized connectivity-accessibility levels of different categories of cities are qualified to measure the impact of China’s future national HSR network on the potential development of cities. It is found that “Mid-to-Long-Term Railway Network Plan (Revised in 2016)”, if fully realized, would profoundly change the HSR connectivity/accessibility of different cities. Most notably, cities in the Yangtze River Delta would suffer the most whereas cities of the central and western regions would gain the most. This could potentially contribute to, or bring about new changes in, the socioeconomic landscapes in China. The methodological contribution of this paper is twofold. Firstly, an overall index to evaluate the comprehensive connectivity and accessibility levels of the HSR network is designed. Secondly, this paper investigates how to qualify the impact of the future HSR network on different tiers of cities in different time periods according to the change of the overall connectivity/accessibility index.

The implications of high-speed rail for Chinese cities: Connectivity and accessibility

The primary objective of this study was to explore the factors that influence metro-bikeshare ridership from a spatial perspective. First, a reproducible method of identifying metro-bikeshare transfer trips was derived using two types of smart-card data (metro and bikeshare). Next, a geographically weighted Poisson regression (GWPR) model was established to explore the relationships between metro-bikeshare transfer volume and several types of independent variables, including sociodemographic, travel-related, and built-environment variables. Moran’s I statistic was applied to examine the spatial autocorrelation of each explanatory variable. The modeling and spatial visualization results show that riding distance is negatively correlated with metro-bikeshare transfer demand, and the coefficient values are generally lower at the edge of the city, especially in underdeveloped areas. Moreover, the density of bus, bikeshare, and other metro stations within 2 km of a metro station has different impacts on metro-bikeshare transfer volume. Travelers whose origin or destination is entertainment related tend to choose bikeshare as a feeder mode to metro if this trip mode is available to them. These results improve our understanding of metro-bikeshare transfer spatial patterns, and several suggestions are provided for improving the integration between metro and bikeshare.

Exploring Spatially Varying Influences on Metro-Bikeshare Transfer: A Geographically Weighted Poisson Regression Approach

Public transport accessibility in metropolitan areas: A new approach incorporating population density

Measuring cycling accessibility in metropolitan areas

The role of neighbourhoods accessibility in residential mobility

It is important to measure public transport accessibility to help improve the sustainability of transport systems in metropolitan areas. Although many studies have defined different approaches for measuring public transport accessibility, there have been limited methods developed for measuring accessibility levels that incorporate spatial aspects. Population density is an important distributional indicator that has also been ignored in previous methods developed for quantifying accessibility. This paper outlines the research context for measurement of public transport accessibility and then describes a methodology developed as well as an application the Public Transport Accessibility Index in Melbourne area, Australia. Using the Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity dataset, we applied separate-ordered logit regression models to examine how the new index performs with a series of predictor variables compared with two existing approaches. Key findings indicate that there is a higher probability of public transport patronage in areas with higher levels of accessibility. Furthermore, it was found using statistical modelling that the new index produces better results compared with previous approaches.

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/atr.1429

Modeling access to public transport in urban areas

The number of elderly people as a proportion of the world’s population is growing significantly. Special attention to the accessibility and mobility requirements of this group is needed. The contribution of this paper is a review of travel patterns, mode preferences, infrastructure solutions, accessibility indices, mode choice models and datasets as they relate to elderly mobility. Key findings highlight the role of residential location characteristics in shaping elderly travel patterns, helping to explain why research on elderly travel has largely relied on case studies to date. The review also summarizes a range of indices that have been developed to measure public transport and walking accessibility among the elderly, including distance and time-based methods. Future research should consider the dominance of private transport in facilitating elderly mobility and its implications for cities experiencing an aging population.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7319/pdf

Tayebeh Saghapour

Papers

Public transport accessibility in metropolitan areas: A new approach incorporating population density

Measuring cycling accessibility in metropolitan areas

The role of neighbourhoods accessibility in residential mobility

Modeling access to public transport in urban areas

Elderly sustainable mobility: Scientific paper review