This study evaluates female walkability as a means of accessing critical urban services in two contrasting neighborhoods in Uberlândia, Brazil: the peripheral and socioeconomically vulnerable settlement of Glória and the more central and affluent area of Santa Mônica/Segismundo Pereira. To conduct this analysis, the User-Centric Walk-to-Essentials Index (UC-WEI) was applied. The index integrates four key accessibility dimensions: proximity to services, availability and volume of services, suitability of the pedestrian environment, and user perception. The perception dimension captures how residents prioritize and weight these dimensions, while also linking infrastructural conditions to suitability, acceptable travel times to proximity, and service-use frequency and perceived importance to availability. The UC-WEI application was preceded by a survey targeting local women to identify their travel patterns, mobility needs, and perceived barriers to access essential services. Results show that both neighborhoods appear to perform acceptably when accessibility is evaluated solely through proximity measures. Considering the locally defined tolerable travel time threshold of 10 m, 97.8% of clusters in Santa Mônica/Segismundo Pereira fall within this limit, while only 64.6% do so in Glória. However, when accessibility is assessed through the UC-WEI composite index, a more different pattern emerges. In Glória, 100% of hexagons remain below the accessibility threshold, indicating structurally unfavorable conditions. In Santa Mônica/Segismundo Pereira, accessibility outcomes are more heterogeneous: 78% require improvement., 16% of hexagons show moderate accessibility and 6% face inadequate conditions These results demonstrate how proximity-based metrics alone can obscure deeper accessibility inequalities, highlighting the value of UC-WEI for supporting equity-oriented urban planning.
In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the discrepancies between conceived and perceived accessibility. A particularly recurrent critique of accessibility as conceived through planning and measurement standards is that it tends to misjudge the actual difficulties experienced by individuals. This ambivalence must be addressed, as it shapes how decision-makers interpret accessibility issues and ultimately influence policy priorities. In this empirical study, conducted with a panel of persons with reduced mobility—who are particularly affected—we question how citizen participation can advance accessibility policies. Focusing on Greater Strasbourg in France, we first establish a typology of constraints encountered in transit and public spaces. We then attempt to evaluate accessibility inequalities using GTFS data as well as local records on transit vehicles, stops, and the surrounding street network. To better understand common experiences, we developed an interactive atlas mapping the meso-level effects of observed hindrances on travel conditions. Finally, we question the prioritization of accessibility improvements. The proposed methodology, combining exploratory and convergent designs, is structured around three interlinked phases: (i) go-along interviews to document perceptions and inform metric adjustments; (ii) a constraint-based assessment of inequalities in access to the city; and (iii) focus groups and workshops with stakeholders to discuss the results and potential solutions. The local knowledge produced feeds into a broader reflection on prioritization practice in accessibility planning that has relevance beyond the specific context studied. We conclude by discussing the persistent lock-in effects produced by information asymmetries among stakeholders, and the diverging agendas of public transport operators and local governments.
Urban traffic congestion in motorcycle-dependent cities such as Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is often examined through infrastructure capacity, traffic volume, or intersection performance. However, these approaches can overlook the behavioral and spatial dynamics embedded in everyday use of street space. This study adopts a micro-behavioral lens to examine how informal socio-economic activities and concurrent human vehicle interactions contribute to recurring congestion. Drawing on field observations and structured video analysis across representative road segments in HCMC, the research develops a behavior-coding scheme and identifies five behavioral groups (A–E). Spatial temporal intensity mapping and co-occurrence analysis show that congestion rarely stems from a single behavior; rather, it emerges from recurring combinations, particularly those involving traffic participation (A), street vending (B), logistics activity (C), and school or workplace-related activity (D). Based on these patterns, the study identifies four dominant congestion mechanisms: spatial encroachment, flow interruption, traffic weaving and conflict, and temporal density surges. These mechanisms reflect context-specific interactions shaped by street width, land use, and daily urban rhythms. The findings underscore the need to move beyond infrastructure-centered traffic management toward integrated behavioral and spatial approaches. Policy implications include context-sensitive curb-space management, time-based regulation of street activities, and closer coordination between transport planning and land use policy. Although grounded in HCMC, the proposed framework offers transferable insights for traffic governance in other motorcycle-reliant cities across the Global South.
Nowadays, people use mobile applications (APPs) to access transport-related information and services. This study examines the complex interrelationship of smart mobility APP use, travel patterns, and transport inequity. Nanjing, a large city in Eastern China, is chosen as a case study. Smart mobility APP use and travel patterns are derived from passively collected mobile phone data of 8.33 million residents, capturing the use of 23 APPs and physical movements at the 500-meter grid level. Transport disadvantaged (TD) places are identified by poorer public transport accessibility, while transport and socially disadvantaged (T&SD) places are further identified by demographic composition and housing price. Machine learning models are used to examine the nonlinear relationships between APP use and travel characteristics at the city level, as well as across disadvantaged and reference places. At the city level, the results show that more smart mobility APP use is associated with longer travel distance, more diverse destinations and a wider range of activity space, but not more home-based trips. Statistically, TD and T&SD population tend to have significantly fewer trips, visited less diverse destinations and travelled farther. Focusing on transport inequity, smart mobility APP use shows higher importance in supporting TD places than their corresponding reference places. Yet, its importance weakens when transport disadvantage overlaps with demographic or economic disadvantage, suggesting that socially-advantaged groups living in transport disadvantaged areas still face greater difficulties in benefiting from smart mobility APPs.
This study introduces the Spatial Network Autoregressive Propagation (SNAP) model as a comprehensive framework for projecting systemic infrastructure vulnerabilities by integrating spatial dependence, network topology, and socioeconomic resilience. This model advances the field of spatial risk science by incorporating topographical hazards, traffic dynamics, and resilience indicators through dynamic risk-propagation analysis. Resilience is conceptualized as emerging from interconnected infrastructure networks and is influenced by spatial factors, such as terrain, network configuration, population density, and adaptive capacity. The model functions at two levels: zone and segment. At the zone level, vulnerability is evaluated based on the failure probability, hazard exposure, traffic flow, and economic resilience. At the segment level, local vulnerabilities arise from traffic stress, congestion, and segment-specific failure likelihood. The implementation of the SNAP framework across urban zones and 86,273 road segments in Kuwait showed a strong association between hazards and failures (R² = 0.707, p < 0.001) and a moderate correlation between resilience and failures (R² = 0.473, p < 0.001). A Monte Carlo analysis with 10,000 iterations confirmed risk estimations' consistency, endorsing prioritizing resilience investments and targeted maintenance in high-risk areas. SNAP may facilitate infrastructure decision-making by guiding resilience investments, enhancing maintenance efficiency, and identifying alternative routes during stressful periods. Incorporating hazard exposure and economic responsiveness, this study enhances adaptive planning for arid and coastal cities facing compound risks. SNAP is adaptive and suitable for arid, semi-arid urban, seismic, and multi-hazard environments, promoting a shift from reactive recovery to proactive resilience planning.
Mobility systems play a crucial role in structuring access to work, services, and social participation, yet their justice is unevenly experienced across social groups. However, perceptions of mobility justice do not always correspond to the distribution of material disadvantage. In this context, system justification theory holds that people are motivated to view existing social arrangements as fair and legitimate. Its strongest claim, rooted in cognitive dissonance theory, suggests that those most disadvantaged by the status quo may be especially motivated to defend and justify it. In contrast, the Relative Deprivation Theory highlights when discontent emerges through comparisons with more privileged individuals/groups. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study aims to understand disparities in perceptions of injustice in the mobility system among advantaged and disadvantaged groups and the motivations that lead disadvantaged groups to reduce dissonance (or not) and justify an unjust system. Quantitative findings show a clear paradox: advantaged groups report more negative evaluations of fairness in transport infrastructure, whereas disadvantaged groups, who theoretically face greater structural barriers, express more positive evaluations. Qualitative interviews explain this paradox, showing how participants normalise financial and infrastructural constraints, but also show when such normalisation breaks down once disadvantages become evident. The analysis demonstrates how mobility justice perceptions are shaped not only by material inequalities but also by psychological and comparative processes. This has important implications for policymaking and society, since efforts to address inequality may face resistance not only from privileged groups but also from those who are disadvantaged, or risk normalising a society in which the disadvantaged accept and reproduce systemic injustice.
Accessibility is increasingly receiving its long overdue emphasis in urban planning and mobility research. Traditionally, accessibility has been evaluated using objective indicators such as infrastructure quality, travel time or geographical reach. Recently, a growing body of research highlights the role of perceptions, which capture how individuals experience and evaluate their ability to reach destinations in light of personal and social circumstances. The research has also frequently identified considerable discrepancies between objective and perceived measures, underscoring the need for further investigation. Within this literature, cycling has received comparatively limited attention, and perceived bikeability remains underexplored relative to accessibility by other transport modes, despite cycling’s well-documented environmental, economic, and health benefits. This paper addresses this gap by advancing the conceptualisation and assessment of perceived bikeability. First, through a systematic literature review of 39 identified publications, the paper examines existing definitions, approaches, and operationalisations related to perceived bikeability. It synthesises evidence on its key determinants and outcomes, highlighting the main methodological limitations. Second, the paper proposes a comprehensive conceptual framework integrating perceived and objective bikeability with individual and social characteristics influencing cycling behaviour, emphasising the mediating role of perceptions. In response to the existing methodological challenges, the paper proposes a multidimensional hierarchical framework for assessing perceived bikeability, grounded in a needs-based perspective inspired by Maslow’s theory of human motivation. By clarifying the factors that shape perceptions of bikeability and how these perceptions influence cycling behaviour, this study contributes to the development of more robust and equitable measures to support cycling planning and promotion.
In Southeast Asian cities, rapid urbanisation, characterised by a motorcycle-dominated landscape, has eroded pedestrian infrastructure and compromised walkability. Conventional frameworks, primarily rooted in temperate, car-centric contexts, inadequately capture micro-scale, climate-sensitive, and encroachment-specific conditions. The lack of models that integrate objective audits with subjective perceptions further limits their relevance to context-specific, evidence-based interventions. Focusing on Da Nang, Vietnam, this study proposes and validates a Multilevel Structural Equation Modelling framework that coherently links objective built-environment audits with subjective pedestrian perceptions, grounded in Alfonzo’s Walking Needs Hierarchy. Using a mixed-methods design, 720 on-site surveys and structured field audits are conducted across 30 urban locations.At the individual level, Accessibility has the most substantial effect on perceived environmental quality, followed by Comfort, Safety, and Pleasurability, which together account for 51.7% of the variance. Accessibility shows the largest standardised effect, with comfort more prominent than its theoretical position implies, reflecting a context-specific emphasis. At the location level, objective environmental quality is strongly associated with perceived environmental quality, accounting for 71.1% of the between-location variance. Additional spatial analysis reveals significant inequalities, with land use for tourism and recreation prioritised over areas that provide essential services. The study contributes a methodological operationalisation of MSEM integrating subjective and objective walkability indicators at their respective analytical levels; the empirical multilevel test of the Walking Needs Hierarchy in a tropical, motorcycle-dependent setting; and new evidence on micro-scale stressors in a Global-South urban context. The findings provide evidence-based insights to inform pedestrian-oriented planning in rapidly urbanising regions of the Global South.
Integrated Land-Use and Transport (LUTI) planning is crucial for improving sustainable urban development through the synergistic interactions of land-use and transport systems. However, the adoption of integrated planning objectives provides no guarantee for implementing LUTI policies as opportunities for integrated policymaking diminish progressively through the planning process. Aiming to identifying how to improve the implementation of LUTI, this paper examines the current use of policy instruments across the planning process in four European cities, Groningen, Amsterdam, Helsinki, and Turku. The study adopts a qualitative research approach, combining policy document analysis and semi-structured interviews with local and regional practitioners. Distinguishing between procedural and substantive policy instruments and according to the NATO typology, this study demonstrates how cities employ primarily information, personnel, and owned property as resources to influence the enhancement of land-use and transport integration. Fragmentation in detailed planning arises from sector-specific policy packages, emphasizing the need for improved procedural instruments to foster multisectoral collaboration. Unpacking the integration of land-use and transport planning indicates how strategic visions for LUTI can improve planning practice. However, their translation into actionable projects does not always occur due to a lack of inter-sectoral coordination of resources and consideration of the project-management contexts.
This study explores the mobility experiences and spatial practices of queer people in Brussels, Belgium. Building upon existing research from fields such as urban geography and transport studies as a foundation for the methodology, we explored these experiences through focus groups. Our study shows the various coping strategies that queer people adopt to travel in the city, and how these are often influenced by traditional gendered expectations from those around. It identifies how people negotiate tensions in public spaces through coping mechanisms, touching upon themes such as (in)visibility, hierarchies of space, temporal aspects and intersectional identities. Our results highlight how queer identities can influence mode choice. Especially for cycling, perceived gender proved a strong influence: while male participants regard cycling as an aspirational or sustainable choice, it was often a coping mechanism for female participants to feel safe. Regarding spatial practices, our results highlight a need for more queer spaces, especially for women, outside of the city centre, and catering to different day-time activities. Our results show that feelings of safety and belonging are linked to the people who are present in the space. Therefore, we advocate for structural, year-round inclusion of queer perspectives in mobility and urban planning, for instance through gender- and sexuality-sensitive survey design and closer collaboration between transport, planning, and safety actors, alongside greater attention to subjective and social dimensions of urban accessibility. We further recommend the expansion of queer spaces beyond the city centre and diversifying their use beyond nightlife.
Civilian drones have rapidly expanded from niche technologies to widespread tools for recreation and commerce, yet their diffusion remains uneven. This study analyzes the U.S. drone registration data (2016–2019) to examine how digital infrastructure and regulation shape adoption patterns. After data cleaning and county-level aggregation, broadband access, built environment, and state policy interventions were tested as predictors using an integrated framework of spatial–temporal hotspot analysis and Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR). While global OLS results identify broadband connectivity as a primary correlate, the MGWR analysis reveals significant spatial non-stationarity, indicating that the associations of broadband and housing density with adoption vary across regions. Specifically, digital infrastructure exhibits a stronger positive association with adoption in rural and developing regions compared to established tech hubs. Adoption clusters in urban and affluent areas, revealing persistent digital and social divides. These findings highlight how infrastructure and governance are jointly associated with the spread of emerging technologies through spatially distinct mechanisms, underscoring the need for adaptive, place-based policy frameworks in the drone era.
Urban air mobility (UAM) is increasingly discussed as a complement to congested surface transport, but its implementation depends on vertiports that can be planned, designed and integrated within dense urban environments. Existing research remains fragmented across aviation engineering, transport modelling and urban planning, leaving limited synthesis of how siting, physical design and ground-transport integration interact. This study examines the physical planning of UAM vertiports and identifies the urban constraints shaping their implementation. Using a scoping-review design, the study analysed 81 peer-reviewed publications published between 2015 and 2025, combining bibliometric mapping with qualitative synthesis. The results suggest that vertiport research is gradually expanding from simplified coverage and clearance models towards approaches that address demand uncertainty, land-use compatibility, noise, wind, equity and multimodal access. However, the literature still provides limited guidance on translating these constraints into transferable design parameters, particularly for rooftop operations, charging layouts, passenger transfer and governance across planning scales. The review contributes an integrated perspective linking network-level siting, neighbourhood constraints, building-scale design and terminal/user experience, and clarifies priorities for future empirical, regulatory and design research.
Mobility inequalities in North African cities remain poorly documented, despite the rapid urban growth and deep socio-spatial disparities that characterize the region. This study examines how income, gender, age, employment status, and residential location shape mobility inequalities in Casablanca and Rabat, Morocco's two major urban areas. Rather than comparing outcomes across cities, it focuses on inequality gradients within each context, drawing on household travel surveys covering >36,000 individuals and combining descriptive socioeconomic profiling across eighteen demographic configurations with multivariate inferential models. The results reveal structured and cumulative forms of disadvantage in both cities. Income shapes modal hierarchies and spatial reach, with low-income households relying primarily on slower and less flexible modes of transport. Women display higher immobility rates, more restricted spatial reach, and greater reliance on walking and taxis. The interaction between gender and age provides formal statistical evidence of the intersectional vulnerability of older women, whose risk of immobility exceeds the additive effects of either factor considered separately. Peripheral residence exacerbates these disadvantages, particularly when combined with low income. These findings highlight the need for policies that treat gender, income, ageing, and territorial disparities as interconnected - rather than parallel - dimensions of urban inequality in cities of the Global South.
This study examines whether stakeholder-prioritized governance needs and key performance indicators (KPIs) for shared mobility are similar between Europe and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Understanding these similarities is important for assessing whether governance approaches developed in established mobility markets can inform regulatory oversight in emerging mobility environments. A modified Delphi Poll including surveys followed by Semi-Structured Interviews was conducted with mobility experts from both regions. Survey responses were analyzed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and interview data was examined through reflexive thematic analysis. Findings show substantial alignment in operational governance priorities, particularly regarding safety, service reliability, and accessibility compliance. However, qualitative results indicate that differences in regulatory maturity, institutional capacity, and urban operating environments influence how KPIs are interpreted and implemented in practice. These findings suggest that governance frameworks for shared and mobility may be adaptable across regions at a strategic level, while requiring contextual adjustment in application.
Safety has long been a central concern in transport research, recurring across domains such as road safety, transport planning, and travel behaviour. Existing studies have examined safety through diverse lenses including traffic risk, accident assessment, and experiences of harassment, underscoring that safety is not merely a technical property of transport systems but a socially differentiated and context dependent experience. This paper examines how perceived safety functions as a central component of mobility for older adults in urban Indonesia. For older adults, mobility is not only functional but central to sustaining social participation, access to everyday necessities, and a sense of wellbeing in later life. Yet older adults often face barriers associated with ageing-related health limitations and heightened exposure to unsafe built environments.Drawing on in-depth interviews, go-along interviews, and observations in two Indonesian cities, this study conceptualizes perceived safety as an embodied and relational experience mediated through affect and emotion in everyday mobility. From the perspective of older adults in Indonesia, fear, uncertainty, and emotional strain emerge through repeated encounters with uneven infrastructure, mixed traffic environments, and limited transport services. However, these experiences are not solely characterised by vulnerability; they are also shaped by everyday practices of adaptation, endurance, and tacit acceptance through which older adults continue to navigate and participate in urban life. Both negative and positive affects generate different responses, shaping mobility decisions in iterative ways and producing nuanced perceptions of safety that intersect with financial constraints, health conditions, access to transport modes, and infrastructural conditions. By foregrounding affect and emotion, this paper moves beyond narrow interpretations of safety as accident or crime risk and shows how safety is continuously sensed, negotiated, and reformulated through everyday mobility practices.
Transport disadvantage is widely researched, yet less is known about how mobility constraints translate into suppressed travel: desired but unrealised trips. This paper examines suppressed travel among low-income older adults, focusing on social housing tenants in Ghent, Belgium. While urban environments are often assumed to offer favourable accessibility due to dense service provision and public transport, this study questions whether proximity alone is sufficient to prevent forgone travel for vulnerable groups. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 16 social housing tenants aged 54–83, the study adopts a qualitative lens to explore mobility barriers, coping strategies, and the lived experience of unmet travel needs. The findings show that transport disadvantage emerges from the interplay between financial, health-related, cognitive, and emotional constraints. Declining public transport provision, stress associated with driving and parking, health limitations, and the emotional burden of planning and uncertainty all contribute to transport disadvantage, and in some cases, forgone travel. Although urban proximity plays a mitigating role, it does not eliminate suppressed travel, particularly for leisure activities and family visits outside the city. The study highlights how suppressed travel persists even in highly accessible urban settings and underscores the importance of qualitative approaches to uncover the multiple dimensions of transport disadvantage. In terms of policy implications, the paper points to the significant effects of austerity measures in public transport, particularly for captive users, and underscores the need for strong public services to ensure that mobility, care, and social participation remain accessible and equitably supported across society.
This study examines how Austria’s dual education system generates unique commuting demands. Apprentices must regularly navigate educational travel to vocational schools as well as employment-like commuting to often spatial dispersed training companies, while facing youth-related restrictions in autonomous mobility and financial resources. However, the mobility implications of this institutional arrangement remain largely overlooked in both transport research and policy. To explore how apprentices perceive and manage these mobility demands, twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with apprentices aged 16–23 in the Vienna metropolitan area and Upper Austria, consisting of urban, peri-urban and rural contexts. Interview data were analysed via qualitative content analysis. Findings reveal that apprentices face heightened transport poverty risks due to spatial inaccessibility, temporal demands, and limited resources, particularly in rural, peri-urban and town areas where insufficient public transport increases dependence on private motorised transport or social support networks. Spatial disparities in training locations and early work hours intensify negative consequences of time poverty, stress and exclusion risks. While some mitigate these challenges through household support or flexible modal choices, access to coping resources is uneven. Despite these objective constraints, many apprentices do not perceive themselves as disadvantaged due to the normalization of car dependency and long commutes; burdens intensify primarily when multiple constraints overlap. The study highlights apprentices as a group facing structural mobility vulnerabilities that remain underrepresented in policy discourse. It calls for spatially tailored mobility interventions and stronger coordination between transport, education, and youth policy sectors to ensure equitable access to vocational education.
While inclusion is widely acknowledged as a core principle in mobility planning, it is often inadequately addressed in public transit systems in mid-sized urban contexts. This paper presents the results of an empirical study examining accessibility and equity issues in public transit practice, using the bus network in Khanh Hoa as a case study. The findings show that only 41.2% of the population is located within transit-supportive areas under the current public transit network, reflecting very limited accessibility to essential services such as education and medical facilities. Using the Level-of-Service (LOS) metrics, where LOS A represents the highest and LOS F the lowest service quality, to evaluate accessibility, the analysis draws a picture of inequity in public transport accessibility, where lower-income groups are more excluded. In general, only 14.8% of the population resides in areas classified as LOS A and B, whereas nearly 60% live in zones with LOS F, highlighting a substantial deficit in essential mobility provision. High-income groups represent more than half of the total population benefiting from LOS A, while only 15% of them fall within LOS F, compared with the overall average. In contrast, lower-income groups are disproportionately concentrated in poorly served transit areas, indicating that public transport provision tends to be less favor poorer neighbourhoods. The calculated Palma ratio further confirms this imbalance. The ratio of three reflects a severe concentration of accessibility benefits among higher-income residents. This evidence suggests that current transport planning outcomes reinforce socio-economic inequity rather than mitigate it. These findings call for attention toward improving social equity in public transport planning projects in mid-sized urban contexts in developing countries.
Beyond environmental discourse, automobility harbours profound, often overlooked, psychosocial dimensions. This pioneering study uncovers the link between household car ownership and reduced ageing anxiety in China, a nation facing rapid motorisation and an escalating older population. Employing advanced double/debiased machine learning on a nationally representative survey (N = 2068), we reveal car ownership profoundly mitigates ageing-related concerns. Crucially, this effect is highly heterogeneous, exhibiting stronger impacts for men, urban residents, and younger adults, and benefiting both low- and non-low-income groups. In contrast, women, middle-aged individuals, rural residents, and peasants report higher levels of ageing anxiety, yet no significant anxiety-mitigating effect of car ownership is observed for these groups. Our findings advocate for nuanced, targeted transport policies that transcend simplistic views, balancing sustainability with the critical imperative of fostering mental well-being in an increasingly ageing global society.
In many university cities in Germany, higher education students significantly shape everyday life and urban mobility. Among them, commuter students (CS)-those who live outside the city-may disproportionately contribute to traffic and emissions. Given that housing in these cities is often more affordable than in overheated metropolitan markets, their decision to commute needs explanation. This paper fuses an innovative conceptual framework linking 1) motivations for studying, 2) individual housing considerations, and 3) socio-economic factors with empirical evidence from a mixed-method case study at Osnabr & uuml;ck University of Applied Sciences (OUAS) to address this pertinent issue. Qualitative interview data reveal how residential location and commuting practices are strongly shaped by a combination of key variables spanning all three analytical domains. Logistic regression analysis shows that becoming a CS primarily depends on students' desire to maintain their established lifestyle, including proximity to family, friends, and hometown, as well as their household situation. In contrast, living in the university city is mainly driven by the wish for new social experiences. Income has a non-linear effect: both low-and high-income students are more likely to live outside the city. Rental costs, while relevant, are not the decisive factor for most students of OUAS when choosing where to live. With CS already making up a significant share of Osnabr & uuml;ck's total incoming commuters, the results offer new insights for future housing and mobility planning-and highlight emerging sustainability dilemmas. Potentially, findings reflect broader shifts in higher education, especially the changing roles of relocation and physical co-presence.
