Most analysis of road injuries examines the risk experienced by people using different modes of transport, for instance, pedestrian fatalities per-head or per-km. A small but growing field analyses the impact that the use of different transport modes has on other road users, for instance, injuries to others per-km driven. This paper moves the analysis of risk posed to others forward by comparing six different vehicular modes, separating road types (major vs minor roads in urban vs rural settings). The comparison of risk posed by men and women for all these modes is also novel. Per-vehicle kilometre, buses and lorries pose much the highest risk to others, while cycles pose the lowest. Motorcycles pose a substantially higher per-km risk to others than cars. The fatality risk posed by cars or vans to ORUs per km is higher in rural areas. Risk posed is generally higher on major roads, although not in the case of lorries, suggesting a link to higher speeds. Men pose higher per-km risk to others than women for all modes except buses, as well as being over-represented among users of the most dangerous vehicles. Future research should examine more settings, adjust for spatial and temporal confounders, or examine how infrastructure or route characteristics affect risk posed to others. Although for most victims the other vehicle involved is a car, results suggest policy-makers should also seek to reduce disproportionate risks posed by the more dangerous vehicles, for instance, by discouraging motorcycling. Finally, given higher risk posed to others by men across five of six modes analysed, policy-makers should consider how to reduce persistent large gender imbalances in jobs involving driving.
A total of 89 patients were included in our study. The average patient age was 29 ± 12.9 years in a predominantly male cohort (65.2%). No patient was documented as wearing a helmet during the event of injury. Alcohol intoxication was noted in 14.6% of accidents. Falling constituted the leading trauma mechanism (46.1%). Injuries were most common on Saturday (24.7%) from 14h00 to 21h59 (55.1%). Injury types included: abrasions/contusions (33.7%), fractures (31.5%), lacerations (27.0%), or joint injuries (18.0%). The head and neck region (H&N) was the most frequently affected site (42.7%). Operative management under general anesthesia was necessary for 13.5% of injuries. Nonoperative management primarily included conservative orthopedic care (34.8%), pain management with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) (34.8%) and/or opioids (4.5%), bedside laceration repairs (27.0%), and wound dressing (10.1%). Individuals sustaining head and neck injuries were more likely to be older (33.8 vs. 25.7 years, p=0.003), intoxicated by alcohol (29.0% vs. 3.9%, p=0.002), and requiring CT imaging (60.5% vs. 9.8%, p <0.001).
A typical ride-hailing trip is about 69 percent more polluting than the trips it replaces, and can increase congestion during peak periods.
We examine the effect of the introduction of ridehailing in U.S. cities on fatal traffic accidents. The arrival of ridehailing is associated with an increase of approximately 3% in the number of fatalities and fatal accidents, for both vehicle occupants and pedestrians. The effects persist when controlling for proxies for smartphone adoption patterns. Consistent with ridehailing increasing congestion and road usage, we find that introduction is associated with an increase in arterial vehicle miles traveled, excess gas consumption, and annual hours of delay in traffic. On the extensive margin, ridehailing’s arrival is also associated with an increase in new car registrations. These effects are higher in cities with prior higher use of public transportation and carpools, consistent with a substitution effect, and in larger cities. These effects persist over time. Back-of-the-envelope estimates of the annual cost in human lives range from $5.33B to $13.24B.
The majority of research on built form and walking has been approached from a deterministic perspective and does not address the theoretical underpinnings of individual walking behaviour. This paper interrogates the relationship between individual walkers and their local environment in order to illuminate how and why people walk through/with space. Specifically, the paper reports on findings from 20 adult participants in Waterloo, Canada who took part in a participatory walking interview accompanied by a member of the research team. A relational interpretation of the data revealed that the relationship between built form and walking extends beyond the correlates of residential density, mix of land uses and street networks. Our findings reveal that there are blurred boundaries between utilitarian and recreational walking behavior, and that walking decisions were influenced by desires to avoid discomfort, seek pleasure, foster social connection and more-than-human encounters. We conclude with the argument that a relational perspective better captures the dynamics between people and place, and ultimately guides practitioners to design built environments that accommodate the realities of human activity in general and walking behavior in particular.
Car-centric transportation systems are widely regarded as unsustainable. E-bikes are an emerging technology with potential to strengthen sustainability transitions. Little is known about the role of governance stakeholders in shaping e-bike technology uptake/rejection. This qualitative study draws upon theories of socio-technical transitions, disruptive technology and strategic niche management to interrogate transportation governance stakeholders’ perceptions towards e-bikes and related prospects or barriers to enhancing sustainability in Canada’s most populated, congested city. E-bikes possess niche benefits that help encourage socio-technical shift away from cars. Yet their greatest potential in strengthening transition pathways may be their ability to enhance seamless, multi-modal transportation through incorporation into transit hubs and shared mobility systems. E-bikes also pose negative disruptions that undermine their uptake. The range of models on the market warrant greater regulatory distinction according to unique characteristics and hazards. E-bike governance requires further coordination, and decision-makers need more data on usage patterns and modal displacement.
I conduct a new analysis of a nationally representative U.S. transportation survey to gauge the net increase in walking associated with public transit usage. I translate minutes spent walking into energy expenditures and reductions in obesity prevalence, estimating the present value of costs and disability that may be avoided.
Taking public transit is associated with walking 8.3 more minutes per day on average, or an additional 25.7–39.0 kcal. Hill et al. [Hill, J.O., Wyatt, H.R., Reed, G.W., Peters, J.C., 2003. Obesity and the environment: Where do we go from here? Science 299 (5608), 853–855] estimate that an increase in net expenditure of 100 kcal/day can stop the increase in obesity in 90% of the population. Additional walking associated with public transit could save $5500 per person in present value by reducing obesity-related medical costs. Savings in quality-adjusted life years could be even higher.
In the face of federal government intransigence, climate activists are looking to the local leaders to aggressively address climate change. While local politicians are limited in many respects, their control over land use and transportation policy provides them with powerful tools to reduce Americans’ reliance on cars--thereby decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. Using six years of novel elite survey data, we find that mayors are strongly committed to addressing climate change and reducing their communities’ reliance on cars. They are also supportive of some specific policies--including the construction of dense, multifamily housing and bicycle lanes--that would decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Other policy views, though, reveal that mayors do not consistently endorse evidence-based transportation policy practices that would make walking and cycling safe and attractive modes of transit. Insufficient knowledge, a lack of funding, partisan polarization, and public opposition all pose potent obstacles to mayors taking the lead on climate change.
Dockless bike sharing provides a flexible transportation alternative, enriching the potential of both a feeder mode for subway access and a direct substitute for subway trips. This research evaluates the interaction between dockless shared bikes and Beijing's existing subway system. Based on 3.2 million geo-coded bike-sharing trips for two weeks of May 2017, we constructed an innovative framework to distinguish subway-complementing and subway-substituting trips. Employing a generalized Difference-in-Differences identification strategy, we find that subway lines with higher bike-sharing intensity showed an 8% larger growth rate in subway ridership compared to ones with lower intensity, while the substitution effect of bike sharing on subway trips was insignificant. The rush hour road congestion level around subway stations drops by 4% for those stations with bike-sharing trips in the highest quartile. This complementarity between two green travel modes is stronger on workdays, and its congestion alleviation effect is larger in urban areas with poorer access to the existing subway network, revealing its potential to solve the “last mile” problem in areas with inadequate public transit access. We demonstrate that the synergy between dockless bike sharing and the subway system outweighs substituting effects and can help achieve a greener and healthier city.
Traffic crashes are one of the leading causes of preventable death in the United States. Nearly 20% of these roadway fatalities are people who were hit and killed while walking or bicycling. Pedestrian deaths increased by 46% between 2009 and 2016. Despite these troubling statistics, there has not been a sustained and widespread public call to action to improve road safety. Researchers and advocates are increasingly focused on how traffic crashes are reported in the media, and whether existing editorial patterns contribute to victim-blaming and distract from systems-level solutions. However, no previous study has examined whether editorial patterns in traffic crash coverage actually influence perceptions. This study conducted an experiment in which 999 subjects were randomly assigned to read one of three versions of a news article describing a traffic crash involving a pedestrian. After reading the description, subjects were asked to apportion blame, identify an appropriate punishment for the driver, and assess various approaches for improving road safety. In comparing the three groups, even relatively subtle differences in editorial patterns significantly affected readers' interpretation of both what happened and what to do about it on nearly every measure. Shifting from pedestrian-focused to driver-focused language reduced victim-blaming and increased perceived blame for the driver. A thematic frame significantly increased support for infrastructure improvements. This study provides strong evidence that efforts to change public perceptions of road safety should include a focus on improving editorial patterns in traffic crash reporting.
Active school travel contributes to children’s physical, mental and social wellbeing. The prevalence of children’s active school travel, however, has been declining in many developed countries. Gaining insights into school culture and environments in relation to school travel behaviour is crucial to inform interventions. Using a multiphase mixed methods approach, this study aimed to provide a comprehensive understanding of how school policies and practices supported or inhibited school travel behaviour in Auckland, New Zealand. Data were drawn from Neighbourhoods for Active Kids, a cross-sectional study of 1085 children aged 8–13 years between February 2015 and December 2016. School representatives were interviewed regarding their policies and practices related to school travel behaviour and traffic around school, and the data were analysed thematically. An overarching theme, sub-themes and categories were contextualised for quantitative modelling using objectively measured school variables (school socioeconomic status, active school travel programme, built environments around school). Mixed effects multinomial logistic regression models were employed to determine associations between school travel mode and objectively measured child (sociodemographic characteristics, traffic safety perceptions) and school variables. Safety was the core concept of school travel policies, procedures and programmes. Significant differences in child variables, school socioeconomic status, and cycle lanes and traffic lights around school were found between children who actively travelled or used public transport to school and those driven to school. Overall, this study demonstrated the important role of school policy and procedures and the potential application of an intersectoral approach for interventions to support changes in school travel behaviour.
Ridesharing services (eg, Uber, Lyft) have facilitated over 11 billion trips worldwide since operations began in 2010, but the impacts of ridesharing on motor vehicle injury crashes are largely unknown. This spatial ecological case-cross over used highly spatially and temporally resolved trip-level rideshare data and incident-level injury crash data for New York City (NYC) for 2017 and 2018. The space-time units of analysis were NYC taxi zone polygons partitioned into hours. For each taxi zone-hour we calculated counts of rideshare trip origins and rideshare trip destinations. Case units were taxi zone-hours in which any motor vehicle injury crash occurred, and matched control units were the same taxi zone from 1 week before (−168 hours) and 1 week after (+168 hours) the case unit. Conditional logistic regression models estimated the odds of observing a crash (separated into all injury crashes, motorist injury crashes, pedestrian injury crashes, cyclist injury crashes) relative to rideshare trip counts. Models controlled for taxi trips and other theoretically relevant covariates (eg, precipitation, holidays). Each additional 100 rideshare trips originating within a taxi zone-hour was associated with 4.6% increased odds of observing any injury crash compared with the control taxi zone-hours (OR=1.046; 95% CI 1.032 to 1.060). Associations were detected for motorist injury and pedestrian injury crashes, but not cyclist injury crashes. Findings were substantively similar for analyses conducted using trip destinations as the exposure of interest. Ridesharing contributes to increased injury burden due to motor vehicle crashes, particularly for motorist and pedestrian injury crashes at trip nodes.
This study estimated the associations between neighbourhood characteristics and self-reported body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) risk categories among Canadian men and women. Using data from the Alberta's Tomorrow Project (n = 14,550), we estimated 3- and 4-way intersections, business destinations, population count, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) within a 400 m radius of participant's home. Intersections, business destinations, and population count (z-scores) were summed to create a walkability score. Four-way intersections and walkability were negatively associated with overweight and obesity. Walkability was negatively associated with obesity. NDVI was negatively associated with high-risk WHR and population count and walkability positively associated with high-risk WHR. Among men, population count and walkability were negatively associated with obesity, and business destinations and walkability were negatively associated with overweight and obesity. Among women, NDVI was negatively associated with overweight (including obesity), obesity, and high-risk WC. Interventions promoting healthy weight could incorporate strategies that take into consideration local built environment characteristics.
Over the past four decades, bicycle ownership has been documented in various countries but not globally analyzed. This paper presents an effort to fill this gap by tracking household bicycle possession. First, we gather survey data from 150 countries and extract percentage household bicycle ownership values. Performing cluster analysis, we determined four groups with the weighted mean percentage ownership ranging from 20% to 81%. Generally, bicycle ownership was highest in Northern Europe and lowest in West, Central and North Africa, and Central Asia. We determine worldwide household ownership patterns and demonstrate a basis for understanding the global impact of cycling as a sustainable transit mode. Furthermore, we find a lower-bound estimate of the number of bicycles available to the world's households. We establish that at the global level 42% of households own at least one bicycle, and thus there are at least 580 million bicycles in private household ownership. Our data are publicly available and amenable for future analyses.
Noise and health guidance to date have focused on the direct links between noise and health outcomes such as annoyance, sleep disturbance, cardiovascular and metabolic disease, and cognitive impairment in schoolchildren. However, noise is a psychosocial stressor, and there are individual studies showing that exposure to noise or the self-reported responses to noise may affect health through interactions with the wider determinants of health and well-being including physical activity, use of green spaces and social interactions. Despite this emerging evidence concerning potential impacts of noise on the wider determinants of health, literature in the field remains dispersed and unsynthesised. This study seeks to synthetize evidence on different relationships between transportation noise, self-reported responses to noise and the wider determinants of health using a systematic review methodology. The search was conducted in Medline, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Scopus on articles published from 2000 to 2017. This led to the review of 76 papers which satisfied the inclusion criteria. Despite strong heterogeneity in the studies' methodologies and indicators used, there is some evidence that noise exposure and responses to noise such as annoyance and disturbance are associated with people's lifestyle, recreational activities as well as the local economy of the neighbourhood. On the other hand, there are some wider determinants of health, mainly those related to the built and natural environment, which modify the relationship between noise exposure and self-reported responses to noise. In particular, greenness, having access to quiet areas, and covering noise sources either visually or acoustically with natural features seems to decrease people's negative responses to noise. Results indicate that transportation noise has the potential to affect health through various pathways, and a holistic approach is needed to capture all the effects.
Political obstacles are one of the biggest single challenges in the development of more sustainable transportation. Motorists, car producers, road builders, and others with a vested interest in the continued domination of the private automobile are a powerful political bloc, while professional experts in town planning or traffic engineering tend to privilege cars over alternatives. While there have been successes at promoting sustainable transportation in a handful of cities around the world, the political power of the car continues to hold sway in most places, creating powerful resistance against any policy efforts to promote walking, cycling, or transit. This article uses a case study of the history of bike commuting in Canada to show how sustainable transportation practices can grow and win political victories despite this resistance. Canadian cyclists have had several such victories, despite the hostile context in which they find themselves. Much of this is due to the fact that they were able to form effective social movements to champion their interests. Using the literature on policy feedbacks and communities of practice, this article shows that these successful movements emerged out of a confluence of material, cultural, and political developments; and that there are ways for policymakers to encourage these developments as a form of policy feedback. It concludes by discussing the implications of this not just for cycling policy, but also for sustainability transitions more generally.
This article contributes to the study of critical vélomobilities by exploring an understudied aspect of cycling justice, namely the political and cultural contexts that support cycling as a common good. The common good refers to the advancement of collective rather than individual interests. I analyze whether or not Canadians support cycling as a common good, drawing on a survey conducted by Angus Reid in 2018. My analysis focuses on whether such moral support for cycling varies by region in Canada and the possible role played by the country's deeply regionalized political cultures. These cultures, rooted in diverging histories, competing ideologies and conflicting relations with fossil fuels, may shape this moral support alongside other factors which I control for and explore, such as gender and social class. The article concludes that, beyond the effects of these other factors, divisions between eastern and western political cultures in Canada form a salient context for cycling justice and the assembly of cycling as a common good.
Time spent sitting in cars is a prevalent form of sedentary behaviour. Overall time spent sitting and specific sedentary behaviours such as TV viewing have been shown to be associated with cardiovascular disease – a major contributor to premature death. A previous review found that motor vehicle use (including public transport) was associated with obesity. We update the relevant evidence base, focusing specifically on car use as the risk exposure, and expanding the outcomes to relevant indices of cardiovascular disease risk including obesity.
The initial search using four databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, and Transport Research International Documentation) produced 3481 hits. After screening and excluding articles included in the previous review, nine articles were found eligible for review. Of these, five examined cross-sectional associations, three examined longitudinal associations, and one examined both.
One study found longer car use to be related to higher risk of cardiovascular disease as a cause of death. Six out of six cases examining relationships of car use duration with obesity-related outcomes reported significant detrimental associations. However, car use frequency was associated with obesity outcomes in only one out of four cases. Findings were mixed or null for other cardiovascular disease risk markers (blood glucose, blood lipids, blood pressure and composite risk indices. Studies examining effect modification by gender and age found associations of car use with obesity to be more pronounced in men and working-age adults, relative to women and older adults.
This review found strong evidence supporting detrimental associations of prolonged car use with obesity. However, none of the studies used device-measured time spent sitting in cars. Robust evidence of health risk associated with car use can inform initiatives to lower high levels of car dependency, which is an important goal of the transport and health sectors.
Comparable data on spatial accessibility by different travel modes are frequently needed to understand how city regions function. Here, we present a spatial dataset called the Helsinki Region Travel Time Matrix that has been calculated for 2013, 2015 and 2018. This longitudinal dataset contains travel time and distance information between all 250 metres statistical grid cell centroids in the Capital Region of Helsinki, Finland. The dataset is multimodal and multitemporal by nature: all typical transport modes (walking, cycling, public transport, and private car) are included and calculated separately for the morning rush hour and midday for an average working day. We followed a so-called door-to-door principle, making the information between travel modes comparable. The analyses were based primarily on open data sources, and all the tools that were used to produce the data are openly available. The matrices form a time-series that can reveal the accessibility conditions within the city and allow comparisons of the changes in accessibility in the region, which support spatial planning and decision-making.
Recent developments in the conceptualisation of green infrastructure have used ecosystems services as a framework to understand its multi-functionality. A number of studies explore green infrastructure functions and services, both outside and within the field of planning and design, primarily from the perspective of professionals. The research reported here uses an ‘on-site’ and ‘sharp-narrative’ qualitative approach in a typical urban extension in Kingston upon Hull, England, to gain further insight into how residents perceive green infrastructure and which aspects of it they value. The findings indicate that they understand green infrastructure experientially rather than functionally, predominantly appreciating its cultural services. The article addresses a gap in our understanding of residents’ perceptions of green infrastructure and its benefits within contemporary, master planned, speculative housing development. This knowledge is important at a time of rapid urban development to inform the successful planning and design of green infrastructure in new residential neighbourhoods.
Results Positive associations between short term exposure to PM2.5 and risk of hospital admission were found for several prevalent but rarely studied diseases, such as septicemia, fluid and electrolyte disorders, and acute and unspecified renal failure. Positive associations were also found between risk of hospital admission and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, phlebitis, thrombophlebitis, and thromboembolism, confirming previously published results. These associations remained consistent when restricted to days with a daily PM2.5 concentration below the WHO air quality guideline for the 24 hour average exposure to PM2.5. For the rarely studied diseases, each 1 µg/m3 increase in short term PM2.5 was associated with an annual increase of 2050 hospital admissions (95% confidence interval 1914 to 2187 admissions), 12 216 days in hospital (11 358 to 13 075), US$31m (£24m, €28m; $29m to $34m) in inpatient and post-acute care costs, and $2.5bn ($2.0bn to $2.9bn) in value of statistical life. For diseases with a previously known association, each 1 µg/m3 increase in short term exposure to PM2.5 was associated with an annual increase of 3642 hospital admissions (3434 to 3851), 20 098 days in hospital (18 950 to 21 247), $69m ($65m to $73m) in inpatient and post-acute care costs, and $4.1bn ($3.5bn to $4.7bn) in value of statistical life.
Conclusions New causes and previously identified causes of hospital admission associated with short term exposure to PM2.5 were found. These associations remained even at a daily PM2.5 concentration below the WHO 24 hour guideline. Substantial economic costs were linked to a small increase in short term PM2.5.
Cycling infrastructure such as cycle tracks and painted bicycle lanes is critical in improving safety of existing cyclists and in increasing the overall mode share of bicycling in communities. However, the implementation of such infrastructure has been fraught with political contentiousness across North America. In this paper, we discuss how theories of automobility and the politics around it may help explain current active transportation planning practice. We then report findings from ten key informant interviews with municipal planners and engineers in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, Canada, in order to identify how they implement cycling infrastructure in the face of political opposition. We find that there are four principal strategies used to secure the political support and ensure the construction of cycling infrastructure across the region: 1) piggybacking on public works projects, 2) using external grants and funding, 3) pre-emptively re-routing cycling infrastructure, and 4) finding support from a political champion. Based on these findings, we conclude that the politicization of cycling infrastructure is a result of the dominance of automobility in Western transportation culture. In other words, it is not the physical presence of the cycling infrastructure, nor its social and political representations, but rather automobile that is political, and a battle for (road)space against it remains and may continue to remain a major policy and professional challenge.
Good public transport accessibility is associated with active travel, but this is under-researched among adolescents. We tested associations between public transport accessibility and active travel among school-going adolescents (12–18 years; n = 1329) from Melbourne, Australia analysing Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity data. Outcomes included main mode of transport to school and accumulating ≥20 min of active travel over the day. Low and high compared to no public transport accessibility around homes were associated with higher odds of public transport use (low (odds ratio (OR): 1.94 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.28, 2.94) high (OR: 2.86 95% CI: 1.80, 4.53)). Low and high public transport accessibility around homes were also associated with higher prevalence of achieving ≥20 min of active travel (low (prevalence ratio (PR): 1.14 95% CI: 0.97, 1.34) high (PR: 1.31 95% CI: 1.11, 1.54)) compared to none. Public transport accessibility around schools was associated with public transport use (low (OR: 2.13 95% CI: 1.40, 3.24) high (OR: 5.07 95% CI: 3.35, 7.67)) and achieving ≥20 min of active travel (low (PR: 1.18 95% CI: 1.00, 1.38) high (PR: 1.64 95% CI: 1.41, 1.90)). Positive associations were confirmed between public transport accessibility and both outcomes of active travel.