Laurie Schintler

Women, travel and the idea of 'sustainable transport'

Women form an increasingly large proportion of both the populations of the US and of European countries. This, together with the changing role of women in modern society, has important potential implications for transport policy. Looked at from the micro level, women have different travel patterns from men, reflecting factors such as lower labour force participation, lower income levels, their traditional role in the family, the decision-making structure within households, the current age distribution and physical vulnerability. The situation is changing and this will have implications on transport demands. The female population is also, on average, getting older. Traditional travel modelling spends much time on modal attributes, such as speed and cost, but for many women this may not be the central issue. Security is often important. Standard traffic models only implicitly allow for gender (e.g. travel time is valued different from work and non-work trips). With the increased complexity of life styles and the growth in multi-purpose trips by women, the conventional approach to travel time valuation may need to be rethought. This paper looks at some of the emerging issues regarding women and travel and puts them in the context of the emerging ideas concerning sustainable transport.

MANAGING CONGESTION, POLLUTION, AND PAVEMENT CONDITIONS IN A DYNAMIC TRANSPORTATION NETWORK MODEL

This paper presents a dynamic model that characterizes the changing states of traffic volumes, design capacities, and pavement conditions in a transportation network’s major commuting arteries. It also portrays the evolution of two system-wide effects—total vehicle miles travelled (VMT) and volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions—and accounts for lagged adjustments in travel behavior in its disequilibrium formulation. The model can be employed in optimal control exercises to determine what steps ought to be taken, when and where, and by how much in order to achieve planning objectives. Specifically, the model can be used to determine optimal combinations of traffic demand management measures, lane widening, and highway maintenance for achieving desired peak-period congestion levels, reducing VMT and VOC emissions to levels mandated by the Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA), and keeping pavement conditions at acceptable serviceability ratings. Information on intertemporal tradeoffs between planning objectives, now required by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), is generated in solutions to such exercises. We discuss how the model can be operationalized and illustrate its practicability with a small empirical example.

Women, motorization and the environment

Abstract This note argues that more attention should be paid in transport forecasting and modeling to the particular nature of trips and travel behavior associate with women. Women in industrialized countries are becoming increasingly mobile but their travel patterns are different to the stereo type radial patterns often assumed as part of urban transport planning. The longer life expectancy of women and their continued desire for mobility also has policy implications. These facts, combined with potentially different attitudes towards environmental protection than men are likely to have implications for transport policy.

Methods and Models in Transport and Telecommunications

One aspect of the new economy is a transition to a networked society, and the emergence of a highly interconnected, interdependent and complex system of networks to move people, goods and information. An example of this is the in creasing reliance of networked systems (e. g. , air transportation networks, electric power grid, maritime transport, etc. ) on telecommunications and information in frastructure. Many of the networks that evolved today have an added complexity in that they have both a spatial structure – i. e. , they are located in physical space but also an a spatial dimension brought on largely by their dependence on infor mation technology. They are also often just one component of a larger system of geographically integrated and overlapping networks operating at different spatial levels. An understanding of these complexities is imperative for the design of plans and policies that can be used to optimize the efficiency, performance and safety of transportation, telecommunications and other networked systems. In one sense, technological advances along with economic forces that encourage the clustering of activities in space to reduce transaction costs have led to more efficient network structures. At the same time the very properties that make these networks more ef ficient have also put them at a greater risk for becoming disconnected or signifi cantly disruptedwh en super connected nodes are removed either intentionally or through a targeted attack.

Women's Travel Patterns and the Environment: An Agenda for Research

Demographic change, new family structures, and concerns about personal safety are contributing to a growing use of motorized transportation by women. The increasing importance of women as travelers has implications for the ways in which transportation policy must be reviewed in an era when sustainable development has become a key issue. An appreciation of the particular nature of women’s travel behavior, and their designed behavior, could facilitate an easier path to sustainability. The travel patterns, needs, and psychology of women are examined, as well as the influence of these patterns and behavior on efforts to promote sustainable development. Women’s travel patterns differ in important ways from those of men. In particular, gender differences arise in (a) the distance traveled, (b) the mode of travel, and (c) the complexity and purpose of trip making. The particular psychology of women contributes to these patterns. In comparison with men, women tend to be prone to ambivalent feelings, but their analysis of these feelings can prompt leaps in thought and creative solutions to problems. In addition, women are more risk averse than men. Risk aversion may affect women’s travel decisions—for example, when security is a concern. Changes in the economy also are placing new demands and constraints on women, their lives, and their travel patterns. Future research on women and transportation should focus on the psychological aspects of women’s travel, the special travel needs and circumstances of women, and the influence of changing economic conditions on women’s travel patterns and the environment.

Moving from Protection to Resiliency: A Path to Securing Critical Infrastructure

The events of 9/11 brought renewed focus to critical infrastructure, but the security of infrastructure has been and continues to be an issue outside the scope of any one event or country. Oil pipeline attacks in Iraq, massive blackouts in Italy, the United States, and Russia, submarine cable failures in the Atlantic, accidental and intentional failures of infrastructure are an increasing and complex problem. The issue of infrastructure security is a global problem both is applicability and connectivity. All nations are dependent on infrastructure and many of these infrastructures cross international borders and some span the globe. A problem facing all nations is that they have the responsibility for securing infrastructure but critical aspects are owned by the private sector. This though is only one of many problems facing infrastructure security: 1) infrastructures are interdependent on each others reliability 2) infrastructures are large, dynamically unsynchronized, and complex 3) sharing information about infrastructure vulnerabilities is severely hampered by fears of regulation and competition. Along with these direct obstacles there are larger economic forces that complicate the issue. The markets driving infrastructure are geared towards maximizing efficiency to increase profit and not maximizing protection, which can result in public vulnerabilities.

Optimal Policies for Reducing Congestion of Major Commuting Arteries in a Growing Urbanized Area

In this paper we develop a dynamic disequilibrium model characterizing the changing states of system capacity and traffic volume for a number of major commuting artenes in an urban highway system. This model may be used to solve the planning problem of determining how limited new construction and traffic control measures may be combined to reduce dnve-alone commut ing and other drive-alone travel at peak times in an urbanized area where growth and change are ongoing. We derive the set of conditions that characterize the optimal control solution to the problem, discuss how the approach suggested can be operationalized, and use a small empirical example to demonstrate the approachs feasibility.

WELFARE REFORM AND THE SPATIAL DIVIDE: A STUDY IN TRANSPORTING RECIPIENTS TO JOBS

A number of studies supports the ineffectiveness of public transportation to connect low‐income individuals with entry‐level employment. The transportation obstacles faced by welfare recipients to find and maintain employment continue to persist. Focussing on the example of two programs implemented in suburban Washington, D.C., this study explores the question of what type of transportation services best support the welfare‐to‐work goals and whether they instill a sense of self‐reliance and esteem among participants. In addition, this study used the data to develop spatio — temporal travel pattern diagrams, which suggest that transportation may change the psychology of transit for recipients. The authors recommend that service providers give greater attention to outreach services and ensure better coordination between transit, childcare and job training programs. The paper also includes a number of suggestions to improve both skill and spatial mismatch.

Sensing ‘socio-spatio’ interaction and accessibility from location-sharing services data

Recently there have been significant efforts to mine location-sharing services data and other similar types of geo-social digital data to understand and analyse the complexity of human mobility patterns. Of these studies, very few studies have examined how mobility patterns vary across different regions of the United States. This chapter intends to fill this gap in the literature. Specifically, we use bipartite network modelling to derive a set of metrics for characterizing regional variations in the mobility patterns of individuals. Through this study, we also attempt to gain insight on the types of trips that location-sharing services data may represent. Lastly, we use a community detection to derive information on what we refer to as ‘mobility sheds’. For the purpose of this study, we use a sample of Brightkite location-sharing services data, collected by the Stanford Large Network Dataset collection, SNAP.

Gendered Science in the 21st Century: Productivity Puzzle 2.0?

The notion of the ‘productivity puzzle,’ referring particularly to gender disparities in science and technology publication rates, raises a variety of critical issues for understanding related workforce development and capacity. However, such issues typically are framed relative to an increasingly outdated cultural and technological landscape in which scientific productivity is viewed principally as an outcome. We argue instead that characterizing scientific productivity as a multifaceted dynamic, highly networked, and interactive process, rather than just an outcome, might provide greater insight into the gendered nature of science and lead to a re-framing of the gender-differentiated productivity puzzle. By rethinking how we engage related questions, we might gain ground on explaining and unraveling the productivity puzzle in ways that will benefit the scientific enterprise and society in general.